


Ten Thousand Pounds of Feathers

by ReminiscentLullaby



Series: The Beginning of Goodbye [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Identity Reveal, Some Gabenath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-10-26 23:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20750453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReminiscentLullaby/pseuds/ReminiscentLullaby
Summary: Nathalie learns something earth-shattering about Adrien that could change everything she and Hawkmoth have been working towards. But then again, it might change nothing at all.Previously posted on fanfiction.net





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This work was previously posted on FanFiction.net and was written before the episode Reflekdoll was released. A sequel is currently in the works.
> 
> Please enjoy!

Prologue

"Duusu, transform me!"

Every appearance of Mayura felt like a rebirth.

Consumed in a dazzling blue light, life returned to her spirit in excess where it felt like it was slowly draining away, until she practically beamed with it. A wicked smile twitched into place on her lips, unable to be contained by the inclination towards indifference she had left behind. The best she could do was crack open her fan and hide the lower half of her face behind it; even so, her eyes betrayed the ecstasy pumping through her veins. She was beginning to think that life was not a state of being, but a substance, the side effects of which were enhanced by the power now flowing under her skin like lightning.

In front of her, Hawkmoth stood with both hands perched on his cane. His expression was unreadable at first, and then it slowly gave way to pleasure – at seeing her again, at seeing her this happy, this alive. His eyes looked silver in the light of the lair; behind them, Mayura could see the hunger driving his mission forward. It was a hunger that they had eventually grown to share, and never so equally as when they wore their power on their chests, completely unafraid of each other.

She could feel what he was feeling, the guiding force of his miraculous that had led them back to this place, now sending pulses of energy through her own body. Somewhere out in the city, a brand new victim broadcasted his emotions directly to them. Frustration, resentment, they were palpable, and Mayura swallowed them hot. Hawkmoth took in a deep breath, as though the emotions fed through his lungs like light, clean air. The two of them would become all that was left of it, and then they'd give everything back, crafting the perfect monsters to ignite a new battle for the fate of reality. Her partner turned away from her, his long black shadow stretching towards the heels of her boots until they stood in the same darkness. He raised his hand into the air, and from the throng of white wings fluttering above their heads, a single butterfly landed softly on his index finger. Mayura found Hawkmoth graceful, to be so powerful in stature, yet so delicate with a creature as light and lovely as a pure white butterfly.

The smile on her face widened behind the shield of her fan as Hawkmoth closed his hand over the creature. Dark bubbles of energy collapsed into his grasp with a shrill, almost mechanical hiss. His hands returned to his cane, and a newly-corrupted akuma rose above their heads, cutting a dark path through the crowd of yet untainted butterflies and escaping through the gap in the large glass panel. An ice cold stroke of thrill slid across her spine like a stream of water as she watched it leave.

It hadn't take her long to master her own power. With just a little intensive work and a little more desperation, Mayura had become a formidable force, one that had to be used _sparingly_ (Hawkmoth's biting emphasis on the word was etched into her brain; now, there was a quarter-second hesitation whenever she reached for her miraculous). Though, the conditions were difficult to abide by, because everything was coming so easy. It was as if Mayura was just as much her own person as the woman bearing her blue-toned skin, borrowing a mind that already existed, becoming privy to its desires, overwhelmed by its ambition.

She walked in the path of his shadow to stand beside him. Their arms brushed, and his gaze caught on hers when he glanced down at her half-hidden face. For several moments, they stared and let their victim's emotions wash over them. Hawkmoth's eyes narrowed more the closer he felt the akuma got to its host. Mayura could almost feel it too. Their miraculous were so similar; she had to wonder if their partnership was destined. When she was transformed, nothing ever felt as right as their closeness. They shared a common goal and a common intoxication seeping into their veins, making every color look brighter and every shadow blacker, every emotion a taste of its own. This victim was like copper bleeding at the back of her throat.

Boldly, she removed the fan from in front of her mouth and placed her hand over the top of his cane. Hawkmoth looked down but did not take away his own hands. Mayura kept her eyes on him, watching as his jaw went rigid, his lips into a thin line. She waited for him to glance back and read the question in her eyes, which, said aloud, might be too reckless to secure the response she wanted.

He had looked back at her just a second before the akuma fused with its host, his stony eyes softening for her in a silent and subtle confirmation. Then, the visor appeared in front of his eyes and his vicious smile broke through the reluctant but authentic warmth. Mayura took it as it was, backing away from him as he made his deal with the akuma. Vitality fired through her blood. She snapped her fan shut.

A growling laugh bubbled in her throat like boiling rock threatening to burst. She plunged into the city.

* * *

Every fight with Mayura felt like a mockery of consequence.

Her boot connected with Chat Noir's baton, sending it flying out of his hands and rotating across the pavement. A second kick struck his upper arm and hurled him after it. Across the street, Ladybug wrapped her arm around the waist of a young man, who had just been broken from his akumatization. She tossed her yo-yo over the buildings and swung out of view to get him to safety.

Mayura should retreat. The akuma had been defeated, and her sentimonster along with him. There was no reason to risk her own identity in a fight the heroes wouldn't be able to stick around for anyway. Although, it came close to not mattering. With her help, Hawkmoth was closer to Ladybug and Chat Noir's miraculous than ever, but he wasn't always going to have her. To head out into the public view was a gamble for him; for her, it was like playing with fire using hands that had already been burned away to bone.

She listened to Chat Noir's miraculous beep as he retrieved his baton and flipped back to his feet. His glowing green eyes pierced through the dusky air, cutting into hers. Mayura felt the the pulses of his exasperation. She let them settle into her skin and fuel her craving for a fight.

Most of the time, she didn't step foot out of the lair, choosing instead to stand at Hawkmoth's side and blow a feather to the wind when his akuma was falling short. But today, she'd been born with bloodlust.

Every time she pinned on the peacock brooch and appeared in a cloud of light, her mind cleaved apart. Her miraculous felt like it was ripping Mayura out of itself and breaking Nathalie in half just to make room. Nathalie wanted results and nothing more, (except, perhaps, a bit of intimacy that she would feel guilty about once back in her own skin), but Mayura wanted to make the most of every second she spent as far away from weakness as she could get, until the transformation dropped and she lurched right back into hell.

So, against her better judgement, she charged Chat Noir and swung her fan just over his head, clipping the ears sprouting from his shaggy blonde hair. He swept her legs with his baton, but she caught herself on her hands and sprang back. Her free hand wrung itself, trying to imagine the feeling of his ring in its possession. She went for another attack, having to duck away from several blows to the head. She managed to slap him across the face with her fan, but the strike hardly fazed him. He swung out his leg, just scraping her chin, and she leaped back. Another kick was caught. Chat Noir huffed and flicked his wrist. The baton in his hand shot towards her, nailing her in the sternum. Her boots skidded across the asphalt as distance opened between them. Mayura gasped for the air that had been knocked out of her chest. Chat Noir's baton retracted again, and he took off down the street.

She growled, following him despite the ache in her chest. Her fan vibrated - Hawkmoth trying to call her back to the lair, but she ignored it. Mayura had emerged into the city with the intent to return with her hands full.

Chat Noir paused in front of a building and set his baton vertically on the sidewalk. A slight tug urged the weapon to expand again, propelling him up to the rooftop, but Mayura had been fast. She swept out her leg and knocked the baton out from under him before he could reach his destination, sending him sprawling for the ground. Chat Noir twisted in the air to land in a crouch, and (she could have laughed), he pounced at her. Before his claws could sink into her dress, she caught him by the wrists and tossed him behind her. He grabbed his weapon from the ground and whirled it at her. She evaded every hit he attempted, but she couldn't make any effective blows of her own until an uppercut to his baton with her fan left him open. She tossed both their weapons away and seized him by the throat, driving him back into the wall of the building. Immediately, she removed her hands and pinned him by the arms instead. Something in his eyes had registered and she remembered how young he seemed to be. Her head was still half-Nathalie.

Chat Noir gulped down the several breaths he had missed while she had been strangling him. Then, his eyes went dark, and he spat, "Can't you and Hawkmoth ever accept a loss?"

His ring started beeping again. Mayura held him while he fidgeted. Letting his arm go to reach for the miraculous would allow him the necessary half-second to escape. She just needed to keep him there until he ran out of time. "Unfortunately, that isn't an option," she replied, trying not to let the sound of her struggle pass between her teeth.

Chat Noir snarled at her and squirmed some more. Then, as a light went off behind his eyes, he crushed her boot under his foot. Mayura swore, but didn't budge. She held him tighter.

"That's really cute," she sneered.

"I've got more where that came from." He kicked her in the shin, and she drilled her fingernails into his arm.

"How old are we?" Mayura shouted. "Five?"

"Six." He kicked her again.

"I'm not letting you go," she grunted.

Her blood turned to ice as a yo-yo wrapped around her arm and yanked her off of the wall. Chat Noir kicked her back once more for good measure before grabbing his baton again and leaping out of sight, the sound of his chirping miraculous like an alarm echoing incessantly at the back of her mind. She craned her neck to see Ladybug standing at the edge of a rooftop, just close enough for the satisfied fire in her bright blue eyes to shoot through the darkening street and leave Mayura with a stinging fury ripping its way through her body. The yo-yo came loose, and the heroine vanished over the building, her own ticking timer to be wary of.

She took her fan back and wished she could break it.

* * *

Every return of Mayura felt like an answered prayer.

Her feet hit the floor with a bang that lashed through the room. Daylight was dying quietly, and as she stood soaked in the watermelon color of the sky, her shadow started to fade into the darkness of the lair. At its center, Hawkmoth had been waiting for her, his cane laid across his gloved hands.

There was no explanation full enough to justify the gentle waves of relief emanating from the both of them. Perhaps, it was unwise of her to not have feared the loss of her miraculous while she had been wedged in the fray, to let her hunger swallow everything that could have hindered her mission. But that concern, which was what led Hawkmoth to remain mostly unseen by the eyes of Ladybug and Chat Noir, did not fill her with his same worry. It did not keep her hidden. That fire she played with still had nothing left to burn. That didn't stop his fear. The Nathalie inside of her wondered why he bothered with it, because losing her was the only guarantee they carried.

His eyes looked like the surfaces of pools, far from the hard crystals that usually glared out from behind his mask. A butterfly landed briefly on his shoulder, its wings opening and closing a few times before it floated off once again. Most of them had drifted back to the floor after Mayura's brisk arrival had startled them all into flight. They looked like a field of flowers, bright white wings catching the remaining light, wildly out of place in such a room.

Failure felt better when she was there. She knew, not for what her miraculous told her, but for what those eyes were saying. They said failure was supposed to be a cold wall or a collapsing house or a cacophony of screeching metal, but now it was small and dormant and muffled. Failure was something that could not be seen or touched, because it meant empty hands and empty promises. And a lonely room. But Mayura was there, which meant failure and miracle had overlapped, even if it was for a moment, even if it was just at the corners.

There was something incredible about her. Not even Mayura knew if she could name it, at least not while her mind was in two places at once, a piece of it in the right and a piece in the wrong, but both needing him just as much. Something about it didn't make sense. Somehow, things had lapsed together in such a way that allowed them to stand on the same side of this fight in spite of the ten thousand pulls she felt trying to drag her in different directions.

They had come close that day. She had come close. She was seconds away. If hope meant anything - and it was all they had - there was no reason not to believe they couldn't change the world.

Maybe that was why their euphoria never seemed to ebb away. The air trembled with energy only they could feel, and they thought, _How perfect!_ because it really had to be destiny.

That, and she figured she needed to let the ecstasy surge through every part of her before it was torn out of her body with the whisper of a de-transformation phrase.

So, Mayura crossed the room as fast as she could without stepping on any of the butterflies settled below them. The cane rattled on the floor as his arms closed around her waist. She pressed her face into his shoulder, breathing in his emotions. Fear was a flavorless patch of thorns under her tongue. Bliss was like floral candy. Shame was stale and bitter, and it made her feel sick. But she held on as he spun her around. Mayura thought about how this was all she had, and it was enough. Nathalie knew she was fooling herself to think it ever belonged to her. A wave of intoxication would crash through and bury those thoughts, and she would hold him tighter.

He set her down so gently, her boots didn't even click on the floor. His gaze turned back to stone when she looked at him. He was much better than her at controlling the euphoria, because it wasn't about that for him.

"Are you ready?" he asked, voice tough and unemotional.

She lied, "Yes."

"I'll catch you if I need to."

Mayura held on to his forearms. She didn't let go when she whispered, "Detransformation..." and collapsed.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Her headache had worsened to the point that the pain was continuous. Perhaps it would have been just a little easier to ignore if minutes earlier, Adrien's eyes hadn't blazed through her rearview mirror and flickered at the edge in her voice, an edge that, just for a few seconds, had bored holes through the walls she tried to hold around herself and allowed him to see inside. Adrien was far from the most perceptive person she knew, but compassion never failed him.
> 
> "For all that she gave up for him and Gabriel, there was little regret to be had."

Chapter One

Nathalie's fist paused an inch from Adrien's bedroom door.

Moments earlier, in her employer's office, she had been told her knocking would impede upon a session of piano practice, planting the expectation that she would be greeted by the flow of elegant, well-rehearsed notes. She hadn't initially noticed the silence in the mansion until it was disturbed, not by music, but the voice of Mr. Agreste's son.

She supposed it wasn't too much of a surprise that Adrien wasn't abiding by his meticulously constructed schedule, and there had taken place occasions where he had exchanged his various activities for the thrill of sneaking out through his bedroom window, yet the sound of his voice, direct and firm, made her hesitate to interrupt him.

Guiltily, she attempted to make out his exact words, but the heavy door between her and his room muffled the words. It was her assumption that he was speaking on the phone with a friend. No matter, she reminded herself, as Gabriel had requested his presence and was expecting them in the next minute. Her hand, which had been hanging uselessly in the air, tightened itself and rapped a polite two knocks.

The talking ceased abruptly, and in the seconds between her knocking and the opening of the door, she had heard no indication of a farewell, or a hold-on-a-moment, which puzzled her. Surely, Adrien was sensible enough not to so suddenly abandon a conversation. The boy appeared before her, bright and smiling, and when he greeted her by name, she couldn't read any falter in his attention. It was as though he'd completely forgotten that he had been speaking to someone else just seconds earlier.

"Adrien…" She had been about to ask who he was talking to, but decided it wasn't her business, and chose to get to the purpose of her presence, "Your father wishes to speak to you."

Nathalie wasn't quite sure when Adrien had stopped being excited to have earned his father's attention, but she was only noticing it now. She had expected that grin on his face to widen, his green eyes to glimmer. Instead, something reeled. His hand fell from the door knob to his side. "Oh. Alright, of course." He shut his door and walked past her, eyes on the floor. She followed behind him wordlessly down the stairs.

Gabriel's greeting was cold, and it made Nathalie grit her teeth, but Adrien, who was on the receiving end of such a professional and stilted address didn't appear to care. It was ordinary for them, after all. What else would Adrien expect? The boy stood in the center of the room under the cool blue-gray gaze of his father while Nathalie took her place by the door.

"How are you, father?" Adrien asked joylessly, no hint of curiosity in his voice.

"I've been informed that you have some afternoon plans today," Gabriel replied, ever uninterested in exchanging formalities. The sooner he was through with the immediate issue, the sooner he could be left alone to brood. Nathalie bit the inside of her cheek. "Were you going to tell me yourself, or were you going to sneak out of the house again and let Nathalie take the fall for you when I found out you were missing?"

Adrien glanced over his shoulder to look at her, hoping, perhaps, to share words through the exchange of their gazes, but she avoided him.

Finally, he answered Gabriel, "No, father, I was planning on telling you. I just didn't know how you would react. I was nervous."

"What were you afraid I would say?"

This seemed to alarm Adrien.

If Nathalie were any less sensible, she would have started laughing, laughing at the dissonance between Gabriel's utter disregard for the emotions of those around him and his unawareness of what such thoughtlessness did. What was even more amusing was his power to sense any sudden change in emotion by the power of his miraculous, yet completely neglect to pay any mind to his melancholy son, whose resentment only grew by the day. But laughter was not the appropriate response, as it was not so much a reaction to amusement as it was to the understated absurdity permeating the room. Only Nathalie seemed to sense it anyway.

Adrien cracked his knuckles. "Well, I guess – I thought – you've always been, uh, iffy, about my friends." He could hardly lift his head, almost as though the weight of Gabriel's stare was forcing it down. "Especially about hanging out with them."

Gabriel clicked his teeth. "Nonsense." Nathalie has to stifle an eye-roll. "I'm not a fool, I know how important it is that you maintain relationships with your peers by spending time with them. I hope in the future you won't forgo alerting me of your plans."

Surprise flashed across Adrien's face. "Wait, you're going to let me go?"

"I'm considering it." Gabriel went to sit at his desk and straightened a pen that had gone askew. "First, I'd like to know the conditions of this outing. Who are you going with?"

"Marinette. Marinette Dupain-Cheng. The – the girl who's into sewing. You remember her?"

"Of course I do. She created that feathered hat." Nathalie knew that of Adrien's friends, Miss Dupain-Cheng was a favorite, meaning that he tolerated the girl as long as she was a healthy distance away. Her perpetual nervousness could have been a peeve for him, but he didn't care enough to be annoyed. "Who else?"

"Well," Adrien shuffled his feet, "It's just going to be the two of us, actually."

This was unexpected. Nathalie tightened her grip on her wrists behind her back as Gabriel looked up from his desk, peering over his glasses at his son. "I see. And why do you look so nervous about that? She's a friend?"

Adrien swallowed hard. "Yes, well…we are friends. Close friends. And – I don't know. I don't really see her like that, but –"

"Like what?"

_Don't be cruel_, thought Nathalie, sharpening her glare. Gabriel was fixated on his son, however, who was, luckily, too unsure of himself to answer the incisive question.

"I don't see her like that. And I don't think she sees me like that, but it's just that – that our – our friends, I guess as a joke – they were calling it…a…a date."

Nathalie expected the worst, but Gabriel stunned her by smiling. He leaned back in his chair. "Oh, a date? Is that so?"

"Please let me go, Father. It's not a real date, that's just a joke. Well, not a joke – that sounds kinda mean, but – We're just two friends getting tea. That's all." Adrien's face fell when his father didn't budge, smile unfaltering. "You're not gonna let me go, are you? It's not until three, I still have time to finish practicing my –"

"I'm letting you go."

Adrien gasped. "You are?"

"Yes." Gabriel stood up again, accidentally bumping his desk and sending the pen awry once more. He straightened it, and then gestured to Nathalie. "Nathalie will be accompanying you."

Adrien blinked. "What?"

"What?" Nathalie echoed, surprised at herself for losing her composure, but even more surprised that Gabriel would send her on a sort-of-kind-of-not-really-a-date along with his son. She supposed of all the things she knew about him, this shouldn't have really been so insane.

"She'll be prepared to take you ten to three-o-clock. You're dismissed."

Adrien, at a loss for what to say, merely exchanged another useless look with Nathalie and bowed out of the room. When the door slammed, Nathalie immediately turned to Gabriel. He was frowning down at his desk, scrutinizing every detail to ensure he'd placed everything perfectly. As soon as his son had left the room, a switch had flipped in his mind, and his thoughts had carried him elsewhere in a matter of seconds. Nathalie cleared her throat.

"Sir."

"Yes, Nathalie?" Finding the contents of his desk satisfying, he turned his back to her, gazing up at Emilie's golden portrait. Nathalie bit her lip and tried to choose her words carefully.

"Is it really appropriate that I am to accompany Adrien on his outing with his friend?"

"I don't want rumors spreading about them. We don't have to bother with trite conflicts such as onlookers and press believing my son has taken a romantic interest in a girl. He needs to focus on his career and his studies." Gabriel sighed up at Emilie's face and then looked back at Nathalie. "Your presence will surely diffuse any rumors that may arise."

"Do you particularly mind when he spends time with other girls? Miss Tsurugi? Lila?"

Gabriel shrugged as though those names didn't mean a thing to him. "While I do find it important that he continues to spend time with certain young ladies of our choosing, it's clear to me where his affections really lie."

"You think he likes Miss Dupain-Cheng?"

"I think he could grow to if he doesn't already. He is closest to her, it seems." Gabriel waved his hand, finding the topic of who his son may or may not have romantic feelings for to be trivial. "The point is, we have to take caution with matters like these. So, yes, you will be going."

Nathalie drew in her breath rather sharply, but he didn't seem to hear it. Her eyes fell from Gabriel to the floor. "Sir, though I hadn't initially expected to be so responsible for Adrien when I took this job, I've grown to enjoy it," she said. Gabriel perked up at this. She rarely expressed her honest thoughts, but recent events have slowly made her more comfortable with candor. They were still working out the boundaries, which was hard to do when the boundaries seemed to be constantly changing. "But to supervise an intimate date, whether platonic or otherwise I feel crosses a line."

Gabriel dismissed her concern with another wave of his hand. "Adrien's protection is more important."

_Than his happiness?_ Nathalie bit this back. She and Gabriel had recently developed a habit of arguing with their eyes, which was often more effective than words when he was willing to cooperate. It may have started because the two of them had a tendency to communicate robotically, with neutral tones and neutral words and neutral reasoning, and Nathalie had realized there was so much more to him than logic. It was something she rediscovered every time they fell into their other roles. She attempted to catch his stare, but as soon as he saw the intensity in her eyes, he looked right back to Emilie's unassuming face.

His mind was made up. Nathalie sighed and placed her hand on the door handle. "Yes, sir."

About an hour later, she and Adrien were on their way to café where the date was to be taking place. Adrien, at least, seemed far more uncomfortable than she felt. She kept gazing at him through the rearview mirror, watching as his expression grew more and more solemn. At one point, they locked eyes through their reflections, and Adrien's green gaze narrowed at her. She could feel its heat bouncing off the mirrored surface.

"I'm sorry, Adrien," she told him. "I don't like this either. It isn't fair to you and Marinette."

His face softened. "Or you. I'm sure you have more important things to do." His hand curled around his seatbelt strap and he looked out the window. "I don't understand why Father couldn't let me go alone. I've been out plenty of times with my friends without a problem. Why is this any different?"

She remembered Gabriel saying one day, "Freedom is a luxury we cannot afford". Evidently, it was a luxury he had been careless with nonetheless since his son had reasonably developed a taste for it. Rebellion was becoming more frequent, and she couldn't blame him. She knew how he felt. "Do you remember that day you snuck out to see your mother's movie and were followed by that mob of fans?" asked Nathalie, clicking on her turn signal. Adrien nodded his head soberly. "Miss Dupain-Cheng was with you that day. A lot of people had assumed that the two of you were –"

"Yeah, I know. But those rumors have gone away."

"They could resurface."

"I don't care," Adrien snapped. "I just want to have a good time with my friend. Is that so much to ask?" A look of guilt crossed his face and he apologized for his outburst.

"I don't think you're being unreasonable, truly," Nathalie assured him. She blew a breath of air up at the strand of hair laid across her forehead. "Truth be told, I don't want to spend my afternoon supervising you."

He lit up. "Then don't. Let Father think you were with us the whole time, and then, I don't know, go do your own thing."

"I couldn't disregard your father's wishes."

"He doesn't have to know."

"I couldn't deceive him."

"Is it really so bad?" asked Adrien. Nathalie noticed that he fiddled with the ring on his right hand, a nervous habit he'd recently adopted. It flashed with the light coming through the car windows whenever he rotated its heavier end to the right. "What's the harm if he never finds out?"

"You can't assume he won't."

"But what if he doesn't?" pressed Adrien, and Nathalie was vexed, if not slightly relieved by his willfulness.

"Is that a question you ask yourself often, Adrien?" she asked, just the slightest playful tug in her voice.

He looked alarmed at first. "Well, I – no, but –" Her eye brows pinched together in the mirror, drawing a guilty breath out of him. "Maybe. But that's not really a surprise, is it?"

"You want your father to have peace of mind about you, don't you?"

"Yes, but that's easier said than done. It feels like everything I do bothers him somehow." His tone suddenly went bitter, so much in fact, that Nathalie almost tasted it on her own tongue, "But then when I care about something, he couldn't give a second thought to it."

Nathalie was a little stunned by the harshness of his voice, and then considered that she probably shouldn't have been. It wasn't like she didn't recognize the problem he was voicing, or that she didn't advocate for him as much as she knew how. She licked her lips, suddenly finding that her mouth was very dry. "Your father loves you, Adrien."

"I – I know he does, but –"

"Will you trust me when I tell you I'm trying?" she asked. "I'm doing the best I can."

Adrien blinked at her. His lips parted briefly before snapping shut again. Green eyes wavered like leaves about to come loose in the wind. Nathalie fixed her gaze forward, pressing the brake to yield to pedestrians crossing in front of them.

Gingerly, he murmured, "You seem kind of angry. Is everything –"

She coughed once into her fist to cut him off and swallowed roughly. "Things are just hard right now…for your father."

"They always seem to be."

As soon as she had redirected the conversation back to Gabriel, the doubt faded from his countenance and he looked out the window. Nathalie continued through the intersection and kept flicking her gaze towards the mirror. His discouragement was not an uncommon sight, but the more Nathalie saw it, the harder it was getting to bear. She was almost desperate to see him happy. As long as his mother was gone, she felt she was letting him down in too many other ways.

"This is important to you," declared Nathalie carefully. Adrien's eyes shifted back to her. "I'll give you your space."

He brightened in his entirety, leaning forward and grabbing the edges of the passenger seat. "Really? Are you serious?"

Nathalie dipped her head.

Adrien sat back and pumped his fist. "Oh, thank you, Nathalie! This is amazing! Now we can both have a fun afternoon. I get to be alone with my friend, and you…" He paused and glanced at her with curiosity. "What do you do for fun?"

She reeled. "Um –" but recovered quickly, "I like to read." _When did I last have time to read a book?_

"Oh, cool. You can go to a bookstore or take a walk and listen to an audiobook." He removed his phone from his pocket and sent a text message. "Marinette's already there. This is so great. I'll text you when we're finished."

She smiled at him. "You really care a lot about this girl, don't you?"

He blushed and ran a hand through his hair. "I care about all of my friends," he murmured.

The car ride grew silent. Adrien seemed to be slightly put on edge by her previous question, as evidenced by the way his eyes flitted around the car. She attempted to change the subject. "Who were you talking to?"

"What?"

"In your room, before I knocked?"

He stared blankly at her, the fidgeting with his ring has suddenly stopped, as though the jewelry had burned him.

Nathalie shook her head. "Never mind. That's none of my –"

"Uh – myself." Adrien pursed his lips.

"You were talking to yourself?"

"Is that embarrassing?"

Nathalie adjusted her glasses, smirking softly. "No. I do it too."

She pulled up in front of the café, and Adrien thanked her before getting out. Marinette was waiting for him at an outdoor table, and when she saw him approaching, her phone nearly jumped out of her hand. She waved incessantly, eyes closed and grin plastered tightly over her reddening face.

"Oh, miss, you could learn a thing or two from me."

Adrien sat down and began speaking, completely unfazed by her overt display of nerves.

"Lucky for you, Adrien takes after his father."

She drove away.

Then she didn't know where to go.

Nathalie took a glance at the time. It was three-o-clock, and she guessed Adrien and Marinette would be on their date for at least an hour, and probably longer if it went especially well. That meant she had at least sixty minutes completely to herself. When had she last had that kind of time? Her hours were long because she preferred them to be. A dose of honesty with herself revealed what might have been a fierce relish for control, something she chose to justify as being a necessity in a house plagued by grief and tension and deceit. Nathalie never really switched her brain off. The Agrestes haunted her thoughts without rarely any liberation.

It must have been years since she's set foot in a library. She considered visiting one as Adrien suggested, but she didn't think reading sounded that appealing to her at the moment. At a red light, she took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror. She tugged at her turtleneck. When was the last time she went shopping? Or gotten her hair cut by someone other than herself with a pair of office scissors? Or worn a different eyeshadow? Or been to the optometrist?

"Ugh, you're boring," she said to her reflection.

She passed through the light once it turned green and parked in the nearest available spot.

When was the last time she didn't expect herself to look after anyone else?

Nathalie walked aimlessly around the block, looking through the windows of the buildings she passed without caring much for what she saw. She counted seven restaurants, four boutiques, one bookstore, two cafes, one community theatre, one fabric shop, and a hardware store, in addition to a couple other buildings she didn't spare any attention for. A young woman jogged by with her dog, and a teenager nearly crashed into her on his bike while they were rounding a corner. Nathalie checked the time only to find that ten minutes had passed.

A headache was beginning to set in slowly. She only noticed as she turned her head that dull pain rolled through her skull like a heavy fog. Nathalie made the decision to ignore it. Like everything else, it would pass, albeit at a snail pace, and not before it kneaded the contents of her head into an overworked dough. The best she could do for herself was to find some place to go where she didn't have to look at so many strangers' faces, standing under the bright afternoon light.

She chose to finally stop in the fabric shop, if for nothing else but for the quiet and the rows of colorful shelves to hide behind. Dismissing the employee who asked if she needed help finding anything, she started to wander through the aisles, occasionally brushing her hand across the fabrics hanging between them.

If not for the gravel in her head, she thought bitterly, perhaps, it would have been a better use of time to go on the date after all.

_Shit, when was the last time I've been on a date?_

Suddenly reminded of why she actively avoids having time to herself, Nathalie tried to brush her thoughts away and continued through the aisles. Her eyes rarely caught on a pattern that interested her. Every couple minutes, she would realize that her mind had floated out of the store, back to the café, wondering if Adrien and Marinette were enjoying themselves. Nathalie had to make note of what she set out to do. She stopped at a deep purple fabric and thought too deeply about how it would look under different types of lighting. Every time Adrien's name drifted through her head, she tried to snuff it out.

Her headache had worsened to the point that the pain was continuous. Perhaps it would have been just a little easier to ignore if minutes earlier, Adrien's eyes hadn't blazed through her rearview mirror and flickered at the edge in her voice, an edge that, just for a few seconds, had bored holes through the walls she tried to hold around herself and allowed him to see inside. Adrien was far from the most perceptive person she knew, but compassion never failed him.

For all that she gave up for him and Gabriel, there was little regret to be had.

Nathalie caught herself pondering them again but fought it off with less determination this time around. She left the purple fabric behind. A faint smile had budded across her lips.

It disappeared about halfway through the store, and she paused in her tracks. Her fingers hovered centimeters from a garish red fabric patterned with black spots the size of her palm.

_You've got to be kidding me_.

Nathalie ran her fingers down the ladybug-themed material and huffed at the quality. An unpleasant plasticky buzz sent daggers through her ears as her fingernails scraped through it. Something hot settled in her abdomen. She never thought she could hate a fabric so much, and she worked in the fashion industry.

Her hands started to shake, and she withdrew from the shelf. Nathalie tore her eyes away from the fabric, but she'd only managed to keep her distance for several moments. She drifted back, her gaze started searching for other fabrics that may have resembled other famous superheroes in Paris.

The worst part was, she felt guilty for hating it, for hating _them_. They were civilians at the end of the day, only trying to protect the city of Paris from harm, and they were thankfully very good at it. But she wished they weren't so good, that they would make a fatal mistake. Just looking at this fabric was starting to send ripples of blunt pain through her skull. At this point, she'd gotten really good at ignoring the symptoms of her own miraculous, but she was far from infallible. Every time she heard the pair being brought up in the news or in casual conversation, she would start to lose grip on the handles that kept her body intact. They did something to her. And there was no telling when it would finally take its toll. Nathalie had no choice but to acknowledge that one day, she might not wake up, or that she'd collapse and never recover. A headache could come out of nowhere at any moment, but only they could remind her of what it meant. The thought of it pinched her throat closed.

"I know you're just doing your job," she murmured, the words nearly inaudible under the soft music playing throughout the store. "But I'm just doing mine." Her hands tightened around the fabric, and she was sure she would have ripped holes through it if she wasn't mindful of where she was. "_Just let me help him_."

She jolted as a lively voice sliced through the back of her head. "That's a very popular seller," an employee was saying as she gathered a few yards of loose blue paisley fabric in her arms. "Kids are really into making costumes."

"I'm sure they are," Nathalie replied through gritted teeth.

"Are you interested in buying?"

"No."

"Are you sure? It's on sale."

"No thank you."

"Well, let me know if you end up changing your-"

Nathalie started coughing, cutting the employee off. She held out one hand to stop any queries as to whether or not she was alright. Taming the fit quickly, she took the opportunity to leave the aisle without another word. She found a drinking fountain at the back of the store and gulped down several mouthfuls of water. Her head was throbbing. The colors of the fabrics started to blend together. Blues became oranges, and greens turned to pinks, before it had all melted into a mixture she could only recognize as gray. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall.

_This will pass. This will pass_.

It took her several moments to realize that her phone was buzzing in her pocket. The caller ID read Gabriel Agreste, and she tried to compose herself as best she could before answering.

"Yes, sir?" Her voice was paper-thin.

"Nathalie, bring Adrien home immediately."

She started. "What? Why?"

"I'm going to akumatize someone in just a few minutes. I want him safe at the house."

Nathalie opened up her mouth to answer, but several raspy coughs came out instead. Embarrassingly, he listened. She could just see the stone-like stillness of his steely frowning face, the borders of his bone structure sharp like the edges of ice.

"And you sound like you could do with being back here as well," he finally said to her chagrin.

"Sir," she gasped. "Please, hold on. This isn't-"

He snapped, "This isn't up for debate. Bring Adrien home. I'm on my way to my lair now. I don't want to miss out on this one. If you had your miraculous with you, you would feel what I'm feeling, and you'd understand the opportunity that has presented itself."

"This isn't _fair_."

He was quiet on the other end for several seconds.

"You don't know what this means to him."

Nathalie wondered if he had already hung up. Then he growled with words that lashed like flames, "I really don't appreciate you arguing with me, Nathalie. You've gotten way too comfortable with it lately."

Her face grew hot, though she didn't know if it was out of shame or her illness. "I'm sorry, sir, but what I say is true. This is incredibly important to your son."

"I'm sure that having his mother back means even more."

A sharp pang stabbed through her chest. "Sir-"

"Bring him back now. I won't have you endangering him by disobeying me. Goodbye."

"_Gabriel_."

He had hung up. Nathalie swore and cut her way through the store, trying her best to keep her path straight. An employee at the register told her to have a nice day, or maybe asked if she was alright; either way Nathalie hadn't heard it. She stepped out into sunlight that sent another needle of pain through her temple.

_That insufferable man will be the death of me_.

She nearly tripped over herself when she realized how true it was.


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathalie didn't know at first if she had jolted the steering wheel or if the car had gone awry, because it suddenly lifted a couple feet off the ground and struck the curb with a mechanical rattle. Her chest collided with the steering wheel, triggering a bout of coughing that lasted several seconds before she could regain control of her breathing.
> 
> "Nathalie?" Adrien's voice was panicked. "What was that? Are you okay?"
> 
> She was shaking. Actually, the entire car was shaking, and looking through the windshield, Nathalie watched pedestrians reach for something to support them as they wavered along the sidewalks. Some lost their footing and fell to their hands and knees. Loose concrete and pebbles of asphalt bounced. The entire city appeared to be shivering, and only the clouds in the sky were stable.
> 
> "It's an earthquake," she gasped.
> 
> "It's an akuma," Adrien said.

Chapter Two

While feeling the way she did, Nathalie knew it probably wasn't the best idea to be driving. She was so dizzy that she wasn't sure if the car was moving in a straight line. On the sidewalk next to her, a mother and son walked with cones of ice cream, and Nathalie grimaced. They didn't know what was about to happen. Nathalie could only hope that whatever akuma Hawkmoth had chosen to release, it was a relatively harmless one. There had been so many at this point that Nathalie wondered if Hawkmoth could even tell them apart, if he even knew what he was doing. She figured his grip on reality had to be slack at best.

A car honked somewhere in the distance, but it could have right next to her for all Nathalie was able to tell.

She saw him at the corner of her head, seated with his head in his hands. She listened as he questioned what had gone wrong, blinded by tenacity to his own foolishness. Her hand fell upon his shoulder. Nathalie had to reject her developing taste for villainy in moments like these and pretend she had no preference, pretend she only saw him. That last part was never too difficult.

She hated him. For all that she loved him, she hated him too. It had gotten a lot easier to do both since she had become Mayura. Love was like a mountain growing taller. Hate was the rockslide that only broke from the slopes when he was doing something stupid. It felt the same every time, as though it was just a part of her now. Like her illness.

Nathalie coughed so hard she pressed on the gas, and the car jolted forward. _Fuck_.

How different would her life be now if she had chosen not to take this job? It was a question she asked herself on the rare occasion she acknowledged the apparition of herself she had become, and not without guilt. Nathalie knew how much she was needed. She was very likely the only person in Paris who could tolerate the discord, let alone survive it. It had been years before she finally liked her job, and it seemed once she liked it, she had every reason to hate it. One thing after the other started to go wrong; Emilie vanished, Gabriel plunged into misery, and his misery festered in the mansion while Nathalie had to pretend not to notice the rot. Then Hawkmoth was born. Nathalie chose the blissfully ignorant hope that it would pass. It had to pass. He couldn't possibly believe that this was truly a solution. But soon she had to stop playing dumb. This was the _only_ solution.

Her only comfort, and it was a strong comfort, was that he wanted what was best. Yet, on the other side of the coin was that he didn't really _know_ what was best. It surely wasn't best to let Adrien suffer in solitude out of fear of him discovering the truth or getting hurt, nor was it best to disturb the lives of innocent Parisians and take advantage of their emotional strife. Logically, Nathalie knew this, but to be consumed by shame wasn't an option. She had to let her devotion lead her forward, even if it was blind. Gabriel needed her, and she needed him, else they both be devoured by their lonely disgrace. If Nathalie chose to be optimistic enough to think he could succeed (and she was betting her life on it, quite literally), she would have to admit that it was all going to be worth it.

But there were other variables, and thus such thinking didn't make her any less furious.

One red light seemed to last forever. She was certain that somewhere in the city, a violet butterfly was lunging for its victim as she sat there. Nathalie wiped the sweat building along her hairline and tried to calm down. "He'll be fine," she murmured to herself, her breath short. "He's been out in public during akuma attacks before. Ladybug and Chat Noir will take care of this one."

It felt strange, to so sincerely hope that the city's heroes would succeed. She figured she just too tired and too angry to root against them. Today, Gabriel deserved failure for how little he acknowledged his son's feelings. Afterward she'd play her same old part and comfort him while he brooded over his mistakes, pretending not to believe that he had it coming to him this time.

At long last, the light turned green and she lurched through the intersection, speeding to reach the café. Adrien and Marinette were still seated at the same table, locked in conversation. The girl's chin was planted in her hands, and her eyes gazed adoringly at Adrien while he spoke. Nathalie would have rolled her eyes if she wasn't so uneasy. She parked and got out of the car, trying to ignore how her vision tilted back and forth.

She stormed towards them. "Adrien."

Marinette's trance broke at the sound of Nathalie's cutting voice, and immediately her blue eyes went dark with dread. Adrien looked over his shoulder and flinched. Something in Nathalie's face must have been alarming. He stammered, "Nathalie, wh-what's wrong? What are you...?"

"Your father wants you home at once," she announced, trying not to wince at the hopelessness in his eyes.

"What?" His voice cracked. "But I've only been here a half hour."

"I apologize on his behalf, but we really shouldn't disobey him this time."

"It's fine," Marinette whispered dejectedly, her eyes fixed on the ground. "You...you should listen to your dad."

Nathalie could see Adrien's heart break through his face as he glanced at Marinette's dispirited expression. "But I don't want to leave! Nathalie, is there any way you can convince him-"

"It's just been announced that there's been an akuma sighted in the city," Nathalie interrupted. "He wants you safe at home. No more arguing."

Both Adrien and Marinette's heads snapped. Any semblance of gloom in Marinette had evaporated as soon as the word "akuma" left Nathalie's lips. She strapped on her purse and got to her feet. Adrien shook off his surprise and looked between the two of them, appearing uncertain how to respond.

Nathalie snapped, "Let's go, Adrien."

"Wait-"

"Adrien, it's okay. I'll see you at school on Monday." Marinette placed her hand over her friend's, and a few seconds later seemed to realize that she didn't know why she had. Her face reddened and she quickly turned away. "Yes, okay...Bye!" she chirped before taking off down the street. Adrien looked after her, a bit dumbfounded by how quickly her emotions had shifted.

Nathalie had little time to care and gestured to the car. "Let's go."

"Maybe I should make sure she gets home safe," Adrien offered, taking a couple steps after Marinette.

Patience running thin, Nathalie grabbed Adrien's wrist, which shocked him. She rarely made contact. "My job right now is to make sure _you_ get home safe. Stop making this difficult."

"But I should really-"

"I didn't want to do this, you know," Nathalie snapped, "But your Father-" She cut herself off and started leading him to the car. Adrien gave her some resistance at first, but he gave up after a few seconds and climbed into the backseat. Once buckled in, Nathalie mumbled, "What's with you? You're not usually like this."

He was looking out the window like he was desperate to get out. "Yeah, well, I could say the same to you." She glared at him hotly. "I'm sorry, but did you really have to interrupt? Marinette and I could have found a safe place on our own. You know Ladybug and Chat Noir will take care of it in no time."

"You have no idea how frustrated I am right now, Adrien," replied Nathalie sharply, pulling out of the parking space and back onto the street.

He kept looking between her and the outside, his countenance becoming tenser as the seconds drew on. She noticed he kept adjusting his ring. Nathalie tapped her left foot anxiously. Her right hovered over the gas, wanting to accelerate, but they were already following too closely behind the car just ahead of them. In the mirror, Adrien's brow lowered, casting a shadow over his eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked her. "You're looking kind of pale again."

Nathalie swallowed hard and kept her eyes forward. "I'm okay."

"Maybe we should stop so you can get some fresh air."

"We were just outside a minute ago."

"You could stop and get some water."

"We've talked about this, you know," she warned him. "You worry far too much about me. I'm fine."

"Someone has to. You worry about me," Adrien reasoned.

"That's my job." Saying that always felt just a little bit cold. Adrien recoiled in his seat. "Speaking of, it happens to be a lot easier when you cooperate."

He glanced back out the window, watching the buildings pass by with an ever-increasing uneasiness. The grip on his ring was so tight that his knuckles turned to the color of bone. "Maybe we can stop and -"

"What did I just say? Why are you so desperate to get out of this car? Your date is over. Marinette's gone home," grumbled Nathalie.

"Yeah, well...I guess..." He was blinking rapidly. "I just hope she's okay –"

Nathalie didn't know at first if she had jolted the steering wheel or if the car had gone awry, because it suddenly lifted a couple feet off the ground and struck the curb with a mechanical rattle. Her chest collided with the steering wheel, triggering a bout of coughing that lasted several seconds before she could regain control of her breathing.

"Nathalie?" Adrien's voice was panicked. "What was that? Are you okay?"

She was shaking. Actually, the entire car was shaking, and looking through the windshield, Nathalie watched pedestrians reach for something to support them as they wavered along the sidewalks. Some lost their footing and fell to their hands and knees. Loose concrete and pebbles of asphalt bounced. The entire city appeared to be shivering, and only the clouds in the sky were stable.

"It's an earthquake," she gasped.

"It's an akuma," Adrien said. He leaned forward and pointed up towards the sky. "Look."

Nathalie tried to focus her eyes, but between her headache and the quaking it was hard to tell exactly what she was seeing. The best she could make out was a figure floating about thirty meters in the air above the chaotic surface, a broad-shouldered woman with slate-colored skin and hands and feet shaped like rocks. She was laughing maniacally under the rumble of the earth, and just as the shaking was beginning to ease up, she plunged towards the ground. Her massive fists made contact with the asphalt, and Nathalie could see the waves in the earth before her car was propelled backwards into a light post. It gave under the force and fell the opposite way, the bulb exploding in a show of golden sparks across the sidewalk.

"Get out of the car, Adrien!"

She undid her seatbelt and just about fell out of the door. It was nearly impossible to keep her balance. She inched around the hood of the car, trying to reach for Adrien's hand, but the boy's eyes were fixed on the akuma who took back to the sky, sailing over some buildings and out of sight. Her fingertips only grazed his arm before he took off in a run.

"Adrien!"

He tumbled into the sidewalk but scurried back to his feet and kept moving. Nathalie tried to follow him, but the tremors threw her shoulder first into a brick wall. "Are you fucking kidding me, Gabriel?" she cried, but the noise of the earthquake overpowered her voice. She coughed continuously, stumbling after Adrien as quickly as she could manage. She was able to keep him in her sight, as with all the shaking, he could never move fast enough to get away from her.

A voice echoed through the streets as though it came from the earth itself. "Ladybug and Chat Noir, I am Seisma, and if you want to stop Paris from crumbling to dust, you'll have to give up your miraculous!" The akuma's words had the mightiness of a mountain, chanting in perfect rhythm to the quaking of the city. Ahead of her, Adrien moved faster, as if charged by the demand. Nathalie shouted after him, repeatedly calling his name, but he didn't hear her.

This was the opportunity Gabriel couldn't pass up? This was the plan he didn't second guess? Nathalie stabbed her fingernails into her palms as though her indignant incredulity would keep her upright. She should have just gone with Adrien on the date. She should have sat at her own table and gotten some work done. At least then, they might have left soon enough to not wind up running down the street as the world threatened to collapse on top of them.

Nathalie passed an older woman clinging desperately to a flag pole, while a family scrambled out of their car and raced through the streets in search of safety. Nathalie's eyes stung with dust in the air. _You're going to regret this one_, she thought bitterly, tears building in her waterline. _You better hope Ladybug and Chat Noir don't pick this day to fail_.

The shaking started to ebb, but she could still just barely run. After nearly colliding with a man heading the opposite way, Nathalie tripped and landed on her left arm, scraping her skin painfully on the concrete. The man tried to help her up, but she brushed him off and kept going. Adrien rounded a corner, leaving her sight.

_Don't you dare disappear on me_.

She reached the end of the block and followed Adrien left, but he was nowhere to be seen. Nathalie caught sight of Seisma, flying away from them over the Paris skyline. In the distance, a bright red dot cascaded over the buildings: Ladybug arriving to save the day. Nathalie almost let out a sigh of relief, but her breath caught, and she started heaving, and the heaving turned into coughing. If she wasn't already ill, the dust would be doing a fine job of irritating her lungs on its own.

"Mademoiselle!" exclaimed another pedestrian. "You should get somewhere safe."

"I can't," she choked out. She tried evading the young man, but he was insistent, guiding her with his hand on her back. "I can't," she repeated, before coughing violently into her hand. The blood from her scrape was seeping into the grooves in her palm. She shook it off, the drops splattering on her blazer. Nathalie looked at the pedestrian pleadingly. "I need to find someone I'm responsible for. Adrien Agreste. I need to find Adrien Agreste."

The man stopped and looked at her dumbly. "You mean that kid all the teenage girls go nuts for? Hell, all I know about that guy is that he has a pretty boy face and blonde hair. Lucky for you, I saw someone like that just a few seconds ago."

"You did?"

"He was running to take shelter inside," he went on. "Told him not to. It isn't safe with tremors this intense."

She seized him. "What building?" Her voice came as a dangerous rasp.

The man pointed to a structure that appeared to be under construction. "But I wouldn't, Mademoiselle. That thing could easily come down if another quake comes." Nathalie ignored his warning and tore herself free of his grasp, racing for the building as quickly as she could run. The world had gone mostly still now, but she had no idea when Seisma would send another shock through the streets.

Nathalie entered the building calling Adrien's name, and she swore she had heard whispering before she had said anything. "Is that you?" The floor was still only laid cement. Scattered planks of wood and drywall were scattered across the floor, and it seemed that the building moaned with every step she took deeper inside. "It isn't safe, Adrien. We have to go, now."

A stray whisper, and then silence. Nathalie walked through an open doorway to find Adrien standing at the corner, one hand shoved into the inside pocket of his white shirt. She didn't expect the look on his face to be so dark with aggravation. He looked more as though she had burst into his room without knocking than she had found him deliberately hiding from her during an akuma attack.

"We have to get out of here. There's no time for this."

"Yeah, there really isn't," snapped Adrien. He was tucked into the corner of the room, his glare growing sharper with every step she took closer to him. "Nathalie, please-"

"There's. No. Time. For. This." Nathalie said again, her voice practically a growl. Adrien had had his moments of rebellion in the past, but he had never been so obstinate, so senseless to defy her like this to her face. She didn't really know what do to, whether to grab him and drag him with her, or to stop and do her best to get him to think clearly. "What are you - why are you - _Adrien_."

"Nathalie, just go. Leave me here, I'll be fine."

"You'll be _fine_?" she cried.

He nodded as though that weren't the most preposterous thing he could have said to her. "Go. For your own good."

She tried taking his wrist, but he turned his body away from her. "Your father has to be worried sick right now. And when he finds out that you've disobeyed him and me, I can promise you, you'll never be allowed out with your friends again." Her threat was weak because her voice hardly made it out of her throat.

"You can't pressure me, Nathalie, I have to stay here."

"Why?"

"You don't understand."

She wanted to shake him. "I don't even know what you're talking about!"

His mind was in a sprint, she could see it through his leaf-green eyes, the way panic was waxing to consume his entire visage. Adrien's teeth were clenched like he was in pain. "Please, I can't...I can't tell you."

Nathalie was growing hopeless. "Well, I can't _abandon_ you."

"You have to."

She'd had enough. Nathalie reached for his arm again, but this time, Adrien slipped past her and tried to run. Before he could get very far, the building rocked, and both of them were tossed onto the cement floor. Seisma's rattling laughter traveled through the streets outside, sending a chill into Nathalie's bones. She reached and fastened her grip around Adrien's ankle. Out of the corner of her eye, a piece of the ceiling smashed into the floor in a white burst of drywall. On her other side, a ladder collapsed with a metallic shout.

"We have to get out of here!"

They both struggled to get to their feet, having to try multiple times before Adrien finally managed to stand. He helped her up, and they leaned on each other for several moments, swaying ceaselessly.

"You have to go," yelled Adrien.

She looked at him, puzzled and afraid. "Me?"

He led her towards the doorway. "Go. I'll be fine."

"You're crazy if you think I'm leaving you!"

He ignored her and continued to ease her forward. She tightened her own grasp on his forearm until his face pinched, but he didn't stop moving.

"I can't go without you." She murmured. The building shrieked hauntingly. Something behind them crashed. "Adrien, this is suicide!"

There was a deep snapping sound above them. Nathalie glanced up to watch a support beam collapse with a grating wooden outcry. The ceiling came down with it, and Adrien shoved Nathalie back into the room as everything crashed in a plume of dust. Nathalie let out a half-cough, half-screech that wracked her entire body until she was convulsing on the floor. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. All she could feel was pain and fear and _pain_, and she wished she could rip it out of her chest, but she could only lay there spasming. Adrien remained standing, though very unsteadily, his eyes trained pointedly on the new obstacle in front of them in an indecipherable scrutiny.

"Adrien!" Nathalie coughed out. Terror, she learned, was cold, colder than ice. Her thoughts were broken, as impossible to piece together as a million shards of broken glass. Only one thing reached the surface with perfect clarity. This building was going to collapse.

And then something ruptured in her mind, this harrowing realization that she was terribly unready to die.

Adrien's gaze met hers, and through her own veil of hysteria, she saw something unbelievable. Not fear, nor denial, nor resignation, but pure, unequivocal resolve. He looked like a completely different person, unmovable by the powerful shifting of the earth. He made a fist with his right hand, and shouted, "Plagg, _claws out_!"

There was a blaze of light and Nathalie felt herself being lifted up. The figure holding her spread his gloved fingers over the splintered surface of the beam, and hissed, "Cataclysm!" Before Nathalie could process anything, they were bursting through the disintegrated beam past the doorway. He moved with speed unmatched by any powerless human, eluding debris with the agility of a cat until Nathalie felt her face being warmed by the Spring air outside. He bolted across the street, taking her a safe distance from the collapsing building, until she came into contact with the lightly trembling ground. Then, he leaped away.

Nathalie locked eyes with Chat Noir as he landed on the top of a light post, his retractable baton pausing in his hand as they stared. His anguished green eyes glinted in the sunlight, lip pulled up to reveal gritted teeth. Nathalie watched as he finally turned away and leaped out of sight to join Ladybug in the fray, wherever she was.

Seconds passed and the ground stilled. Nathalie's heart still throbbed like a drum.

She let her head slump onto the sidewalk, waiting for the world to stop spinning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So realistically, this show's long anticipated reveal is most likely going to happen between Ladybug and Chat Noir exclusively, if I had to guess. But imagine if Nathalie was the first to find out. Being caught between Hawkmoth and Adrien, this would put her in a very interesting position.


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm helping because I care about this family. Which is why you have to listen to me."
> 
> "Nathalie, know your place," he warned.
> 
> She flinched, hurt.
> 
> "Enough arguing."
> 
> Once again, the curtains were audible in the silence hanging between them. Nathalie's fist was paused in the air, knuckles white, fingers aching. She exhaled sharply, glowering at him. "I don't think we agree on what my place is anymore."

Chapter Three

Nathalie's breath escaped her feebly as she closed the front door of the mansion and leaned back against it. Rich early evening light streamed through the windows, casting golden rectangles on the marble floor that stood out like blinding spotlights. Nathalie closed her eyes and pressed the heels of her hands into her temples. She needed to compose herself.

She'd had no idea how much time had passed before Ladybug's power had wiped the city clean of the devastation. The pain in her shoulder and chest faded with a rush of pale pink light, and the blood drying on her arm from her scrape disappeared as well. If only it had been enough to erase her more permanent affliction.

Better yet, erased all her memories of that afternoon, of that year.

She had sat up and pressed herself against the newly repaired glass door of an apartment building, trying to catch her breath. Overhead, two young heroes glided into view, followed by the cheers of a relieved public. Then, they swung off in opposite directions. Nathalie stared after them even when they had disappeared again, not quite ready to return to business-as-usual. Chat Noir hadn't seen her, and she wasn't sure if she would have been able to withstand his gaze a second time.

But she was back now, and her heart thumped in her chest as elegant piano music echoed through the foyer from behind his closed bedroom door. Nathalie was half-relieved that he had gotten home before she did, and half-terrified that he would show his face before she was ready to see it again. She knew she needed to talk to him, but what could she possibly say? It would have been one thing if she was just any other average citizen of Paris, but she was far from that ideal.

_For fuck's sake_, she thought, horrified. _I've _fought _him_.

Nathalie couldn't imagine what he was thinking. How many people knew about his identity? Did any of his friends have a clue? Did Ladybug? Supposedly she didn't, but they could easily be pretending just to protect themselves further. Say she wasn't the first to find out; maybe he wasn't panicking. Maybe he had some sort of drill for times like these, and he'll come to her, and they'll talk about it, and he'll swear her to secrecy.

But what if she was the only one? Did he fear her telling anybody? Nathalie had never been the type to air anyone's dirty laundry, because she had never been the type to care. This secret, however, was bigger and deeper and wilder than anything else she had ever come across, other than learning her boss had a miraculous and a plan to magically rescue the comatose wife he kept hidden in a butterfly sanctuary underground.

At this thought, Nathalie's fingernails sank into her temples. Surely Adrien was horrified of his father finding out who he was, and the worst part was that he didn't even know just how horrified he should be.

Nathalie felt sick, and not because of her own infirmity. How could she possibly go on as Mayura, knowing her opponent was Adrien Agreste, the closest person to a son she would ever have? How could she face him while he was clueless that the relentless fiends he protected Paris against were the closest people to him in his life? She tried to imagine them standing on a rooftop somewhere, fan and baton at the ready, prepared to toss the other over the edge if it was necessary to get what they needed. It had happened before. These memories burned in her brain, setting all of her racing thoughts on fire while her body took on the cold. Nathalie was shivering. She needed to get a hold on herself.

"Calm down," she commanded herself, running her hands down her cheeks. She tried assuming her neutral expression and felt the weight of a mask on her face.

She looked towards Gabriel's office door, and the knowledge of what laid beyond it sent a violent twist through her abdomen. There was no way she was going to be able to avoid either of them for long.

"You're going to be fine." Nathalie walked towards the door. "You know what you need to do. You know what you need to do. You know what you need to do."

It was a lie. She knocked.

"You know what you need to do."

He opened the door personally, which was the first sign that she should feel worried. His storm-blue eyes glared over his glasses, sizing her up, and she wondered if she had managed to repair her facade by the time he had gotten a look at her.

"Nathalie."

"Sir."

He stepped back to let her enter and closed the door with a slightly forceful swing. Nathalie took her place behind a chair, so she had something to ground herself to. She watched Gabriel's feet as he went to stand before Emilie's portrait.

Silence for several moments. A window was slightly ajar, and she could hear the sound of the curtains brushing against each other in the draft passing through. She was so used to this, to pervasive wordlessness and building tension, but this time she could hardly bear it. Nathalie felt like she was laying across a guillotine, waiting and waiting for the blade to fall, eventually hoping that it just would.

At last, he put her out of her misery. "You were supposed to make it home. Quickly."

Nathalie took a deep breath to find she was still living. Swallowing painfully, she murmured, "I tried, sir."

"He came back without you. Safe, thank the heavens. But you were supposed to be with him." Gabriel didn't even move his head while he spoke, kept it angled up towards Emilie's smiling face. "Where were you?"

"We got separated."

"I told you well ahead of time that I would be releasing an akuma. You should have returned in time. The café is nearby."

"I'm sorry."

He let out this sort of growling sigh that raised the hair on the back of her neck. It probably would have been smart of Nathalie to admit that she had disobeyed him and left Adrien to his devices before she received the phone call. It probably would have been smart to simply take whatever admonishments he doled out and remain quiet, but she could still hear the rumble of the earth, long after Seisma had been defeated, still see the distressed faces of Parisians, still feel the dust in her lungs and the ghosts of agony in her battered body. Scorn coursed through her veins. She gripped the back of the chair.

"Sir, you didn't make it easy."

Only now did he turn his head, though not completely. She could only see the corner of his right eye. "An akuma like that isn't going to discriminate between victims. Of course, it was hard. But as I said, you should have been back by then."

"I couldn't tell Adrien why you wanted him home so suddenly, Gabriel," Nathalie argued firmly. The utterance of his first name had come quite early. She used to never speak it aloud, but in the last couple months, it tended to slip through when she was pushed hard enough. It got his attention, and she needed it now more than ever. "He didn't want to leave. He was having a good time with his friend, and you were the one who let him go."

"That doesn't matter. He should be obeying my orders."

She felt the drop of her face into a frown. "You'd be easier to obey if you cared about what _he _wanted."

This struck him. Gabriel now faced her completely, and the look on his face was dangerous enough to kill. "Nathalie, what's gotten into you?"

"You-" Nathalie made a fist. She wanted to break something. "You have no idea what you're doing, Gabriel. No idea."

"What do you mean?" Gabriel demanded sourly. "With the akumas? I know exactly what I'm doing. I've been doing it for well over a year, and in case you've forgotten, you've been helping me."

"I'm helping because I care about this family. Which is why you have to listen to me."

"Nathalie, know your place," he warned.

She flinched, hurt.

"Enough arguing."

Once again, the curtains were audible in the silence hanging between them. Nathalie's fist was paused in the air, knuckles white, fingers aching. She exhaled sharply, glowering at him. "I don't think we agree on what my place is anymore."

The lines on his forehead deepened. "Don't we?"

"Don't you think I know too much?" Nathalie challenged, and Gabriel started to laugh acridly.

"Is that a threat?" he questioned. He slapped his outer thigh in a chilling, uncharacteristically effusive display of ironic amusement. It set her blood on fire. "Would you even dare to say a word?"

"Would you dare to stop me?"

He wasn't taking her seriously, and Nathalie had never felt so weak. There was a glimmer in his eyes that she would have been insulted by if she wasn't really as cowardly as he seemed to think. "You're forgetting that I'm privy to your emotions, Nathalie. Even if you were angry enough at me to forsake your promises, I know you love being Mayura too much to quit."

An electric current shot its way up her spine. Nathalie started shaking her head feverishly. "That's not – that's not the point. This isn't what I meant."

"Care to correct yourself, then?"

"I'm not talking about Mayura or Hawkmoth," she told him, hands gripping the back of the chair. "I'm talking about _you_. I've seen too much of _you_. Every side. I've seen you cold, mean, grieving, working, loving, sulking. I've seen every failure you've ever had, and I'll see every failure from this moment on. I might know you better than you know yourself, Gabriel. So, tell me again where my 'place' is. Just think for a second of what I'm choosing to –" She stopped, hating the sound of her own voice, rough as gravel and snapping like a wildfire. She leaned back, her gaze falling to the floor. She was forgetting what she came here to say, she was forgetting Adrien. Like he was. Maybe he was right to ask what was wrong with her. "You know what? Never mind. That's…that's not important."

Gabriel's face had changed. For once he seemed embarrassed, and perhaps a small part of her loved it, but her own shame was swallowing whatever trace of enjoyment she was feeling. "No, you're right." It clearly agonized him to admit it. The corners of his mouth twitched. He looked back at the portrait, but his eyes were gazing through it, into the safe where Nathalie kept her miraculous most of the time. "Until we're through this mess, nothing can be quite normal."

"Sir. We can't keep doing this."

"I know. We have to see more eye to eye-"

"No," Nathalie interrupted. "We have to stop. Everything. All of it. We can't keep going."

His body went totally rigid, blue-gray eyes turning to stone. "Excuse me?"

She tried to keep her voice level, but every word wavered, and it made her feel powerless. "I know how concerned you are with trying to protect Adrien, and I understand why you were mad with me today, but we...we've been _so_ lucky so far. I mean-" she pressed her palm into her forehead, "-he jumped from the top of a building and was fine. How much longer can we keep counting on things to continue going right? Our luck is going to run out eventually."

Gabriel appeared incredibly perturbed that she was bringing Adrien back into the conversation, but her prior outburst compelled him to not lose his temper this time. She could still see the silencing words he was wanting to say in that moment, written across the taut cords in his neck.

"I just don't think we had any idea how much danger we are putting Adrien in." Nathalie wanted to tell him everything. Gabriel was the most stubborn, the most haunted man she knew, and the hope she had that he would listen to her was slim. But she knew she couldn't. She wasn't ready to tear apart what little was left of this family. She started crossing the room. "And today, I saw first-hand. You sent out a devastating akuma, and even that wasn't enough to defeat Ladybug and Chat...Chat Noir. I fear that the measures you have to take in order to succeed one day will be too desperate."

"I don't understand where this is coming from," Gabriel growled. "You know that I don't plan to leave the city of Paris in disarray. With Ladybug's power, I can restore everything-"

"Gabriel." She had reached him, placing a hand on his upper arm. "Adrien and I came inches from death today. I saw it. I saw it clearly and it was fast."

It was like he didn't even know what he had done. Maybe he had called Adrien home out of habit, and it had never even clicked in his tortured head that somewhere out there, where he couldn't see, a rickety building was just a few tremors short of collapse, trapping or killing whoever was inside. Nathalie chewed on the inside of her cheek and tried to get closer to him, hoping to reveal reality through her eyes; she placed a hand on his face, her index finger curving around his sharp cheekbone.

"If Chat Noir hadn't shown up to save us, we would be gone now," she told him soberly.

He rejected this, jerking away like her touch burned him. Nathalie's hand floated in empty space. Her fingers curled and uncurled, still trying to reach for him.

"We were trapped in a building."

"Nathalie."

"We were scared. We thought we were done for."

"Stop."

"It's a miracle that Chat Noir was there. We would be gone now," she reasserted, raising her voice.

"That's your fault," he exclaimed. "You should have brought him home."

"I couldn't. I just couldn't. I know you want to believe that I failed you, but he didn't want to come with."

"Then I'll have to speak to him myself." Gabriel started storming towards the door, but Nathalie beat him there, spreading her arms out and blocking his path. "Get out of my way!"

"Look at me, Gabriel!" she shouted. "Stop running from the truth. I know you don't want to give up being Hawkmoth! You've failed to do so before, but-" she grabbed his face again, this time by the chin, "-but look me in the eye and tell me that it really is best that you keep knowingly endangering your son."

Her voice broke upon the final word, and she started coughing again. Nathalie stumbled back to the chair in the middle of the room, grabbing hold of it as though it was the only thing that could keep her upright. Her entire body took the force of the coughing; her legs trembled, and her shoulders jolted back and forth. Gabriel stared after her. The concern in his face was earnest, but there was something else within it that she couldn't place. She waited for the attack to leave her body. At some point she had ended up crouched, forehead pressed into the back of the chair. She was almost too exhausted to even breathe. Nathalie closed her eyes. Only darkness was any comfort to her now, because it helped to put thoughts out of her mind, until all she could focus on was trying to feel like her entire world wasn't falling apart in a shower of brick, feathers, and unbearable remorse.

She shivered when his hand came gently upon her upper back. His breath was hot on her ear. She gave up her attempt to deny herself pain and yielded to his embrace. Once, Nathalie had been too sensible to ache for his touch, but the deeper she fell into her misery and the worse she became at hiding it, the more he had been willing to freely give his comfort, and damn, he was good at.

"I always knew there was going to be a risk," he whispered into her hair. "None of this is ideal, Nathalie."

She couldn't yet speak. Her throat was too tight. Instead, she reached for his hand and squeezed it.

"I'm horrified for you and Adrien, for what you experienced today. I'm sorry." He was sincere. "But giving up is simply not an option. It will never be an option."

Nathalie tried to choke out his name. Only a weak breath escaped her lips.

"There's too much at stake. I promised you that we would fix this together. The only way to save your life is to continue pursuing Ladybug and Chat Noir's miraculous."

At this, Nathalie pulled away. Gabriel let her go, and she pushed herself along the floor until she could see his face. He was gazing at her patiently, and she held his stare with a stern one of her one, until her voice returned, and she found herself asking him, "When did this become about me?"

And swiftly, his patience left him. He retorted, "When you made it about yourself just a few minutes ago. Need I remind you? 'Don't you think I know too much?'" He scoffed, and Nathalie had never regretted losing her temper the way she did in that moment of weakness. "Though, I guess I could argue that you made it about you when you decided to use the peacock miraculous in the first place, knowing what it could do to you."

Nathalie winced. That he would question her intentions like that sent a dagger straight through her chest, but Gabriel seemed to notice this and looked away. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." Still avoiding her eyes, he reached out his hand and offered to help her to her feet. She complied. Once standing, Gabriel promptly let go of her and went to stand by Emilie's portrait. Doing so was a defense mechanism. Every time he let himself care too much about anybody else, he took refuge under the shimmering gold woman whom Nathalie knew he could never give up on. Maybe he was just as broken as she was, falling deeper and deeper into a sickness that had no cure but a miracle.

"Sir, I implore you to consider what I've said tonight," she pled. "For your son's sake."

He grunted curtly, and she knew that was the most she was going to get out of him. Nathalie left the room like she was escaping a chamber of poisonous gas.

Adrien had stopped playing the piano. Something about that alarmed her. He was no longer simply his employer's son. There was a villainess inside her that feared him. For all that she doted on him on his father's behalf, and just partially on her own, he had been out defending an entire city's people from two villains under the same roof. She was nauseous, she wanted to vomit the memories out of her body, she wanted to be ignorant and foolish, and then again, she wanted to go back in time and tell herself everything and pray that it would be enough to break whatever spell locked her in hopeless devotion to man bent on sacrificing everything for someone he couldn't save.

As she made for the front door, she heard something click open above her and turned to find him watching her from the frame of his bedroom door. His green eyes were pleading, she could almost hear them speak, _Don't tell him_. Nathalie wouldn't have known what to say back. Behind him, something small and black floated in the air, hovering just where Nathalie could see it. She was grateful she was too far away to make out the look on its face. Wordlessly, she broke eye contact with Adrien and left.

Nathalie drove home that night half-awake, but by the time she got to her apartment, she didn't know if she'd ever be able to sleep again. She steeped some tea instead.

She had options, three to be exact. The first, she could let Hawkmoth continue sending akumas to attack Chat Noir and Ladybug while she refused to participate ever again. Though, that would not solve her problem at all. Nor would the second option, which was to join him as Mayura whenever Hawkmoth needed her; but her partnership was more likely to secure victory than if he were to work alone, which would end the arrangement faster. The third option, which frightened her the most, was to reveal the truth. How would they react? Would Gabriel even believe that his son was the one donning the mask of one of the people he hated most of all? Would he perceive her as a liar, going to dramatic lengths to protect Adrien from harm? He had suspected his son once, but if he had actually unveiled the truth, would he have accepted it? And Adrien, would he forgive his father? How quickly would he tell the rest of the world? As Nathalie poured her tea she dared to ask, would he hate them little enough to join their effort to save his mother, who had been under his nose all along?

Madness was sure to result of all of this. Nathalie was practically pulling her hair out as she paced around her kitchen island with her tea. The city was long cloaked in the darkness of night. Bright windows and landmarks kept everything alive while families across Paris went to sleep with the memories of the earthquakes that day, of which nothing remained. Nathalie had never really thought about it until then, how thousands of people could face such trying circumstances almost every day and have nothing left of it but what prevailed in their heads. For the first time, she didn't know if she was strong enough to survive her own mind.

She worked through every possible scenario she could dream up, and she worked through them again. She talked to herself, making up conversations and trying to make everyone sound exactly right. She went awry several times, and soon enough she had to give up, because she couldn't begin to predict what would happen if she told the truth. There was one thing of which she was certain, that everything would change, and Nathalie, once again, was the catalyst.

It was three-thirty in the morning when she finally sunk into bed, hoping sleep would devour her and never again let her see the light of day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, the fight between Nathalie and Gabriel was the first part of this fic I wrote. The line "When did this become about me?" stuck out, and the rest of the story flowed from it. I'm typically not one for angsty, unhealthy relationships, but this one really gets me. I think it's because the circumstances of it are so unique.


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't supposed to happen. Everything inside of her that Mayura was made of was ordering her to drink this all in like wine and stop falling apart. She knew who Chat Noir was. That alone made her more powerful than she had ever been, more powerful than Hawkmoth, and more powerful than Ladybug. There was more than enough evil within her to let her hear that whisper in her brain.

Chapter Four

"Nathalie, have you prepared Adrien's schedule for the day?" Gabriel asked, not looking up from his desk.

She'd gotten very little sleep over the weekend and only wanted to spend the energy to nod her head tersely in response. Gabriel actually had to glance at her in order to get his answer, but he found it adequate and looked back down. Nathalie sighed quietly. Since their confrontation on Saturday evening, they'd only spoken to each other when necessary. It was beginning to feel like her first few years working with him, when they were just more than strangers occupying the same space, but instead of merely tolerating unfamiliarity, they were burdened by troubles too numerous and too bitter. It was like breathing air three times too thick for their lungs and pretending not to notice.

But with Adrien, it was worse, like she was inhaling liquid cement. Nathalie had managed to avoid seeing his face since she left the mansion that night, but she could _feel_ him in the house. Every time Gabriel shifted, she expected him to at least comment on the anxiety his son was sure to be experiencing. Then again, Gabriel rarely did pay any mind to Adrien's emotions. There was no practical reason to; he was never going to knowingly akumatize him. Nathalie felt grateful sometimes that, by nature, Gabriel Agreste was the type to mind his own business and ask as few questions as possible. He took advantage of others for his own purposes as Hawkmoth, but to pry was not his character. It was probably the reason why Nathalie managed to survive being his assistant for so long, feeling the way she came to feel.

In two minutes, Adrien would be coming downstairs from his room to head off to school, and as per usual, Nathalie was expected to be there waiting for him in the foyer to inform him of his schedule. She'd faked normalcy for so long. It shouldn't have been such an onerous task to continue. Alas, her shoes felt weighted as she stood from her own desk and traveled stiffly to the foyer. Gorilla stood by the door, gruffly dipping his head at her as she left the office and waved her tablet at him in greeting. She must have had a crack in her facade, because he tilted his head ever-so-slightly, just looked a little too long. Nathalie turned her back to him and tried to repair whatever dent she couldn't see in herself with a deep breath.

Adrien paused at the top of the stairs when he saw her, his entire body turning to stone for several agonizing seconds. Nathalie couldn't help but think about the kwami hidden somewhere on his person and the fact that Adrien at least had someone to share completely in his unease. Nathalie had to settle for deception until she knew her next course of action (which could easily be to continue deceiving). At last, Adrien started down the stairs, watching Nathalie like she was a hostile animal.

"You'll be picked up from school and immediately taken to a photoshoot, which is anticipated to last two and half hours from 3:45 to 6:15 pm," Nathalie said, reading the information off her tablet without pausing to take a breath. "From there, you'll be taken home to for dinner, and will then be expected to practice your Chinese from 7 to 7:40 pm. Understood?"

Adrien didn't answer. Nathalie gathered her strength and glanced up at him to find his green eyes making that same pleading look that he had left her with on Saturday night.

She ripped through it, her tone severe. "Understood, Adrien?"

"Nathalie, I..." His gaze flicked to Gorilla behind her and then back. Another moment of precarious silence passed before he mouthed to her, _Please_.

She tensed. "You're going to be late for school. I'll text you the information if you need it."

"We need to talk," he whispered through clenched teeth.

She took a step aside to let him pass by and didn't reply. Gorilla opened the front door, gesturing to his car parked outside. Adrien begged her once more with his eyes, was unsuccessful, and left solemnly. When they were gone, Nathalie leaned on the banister, drinking in the lighter air.

* * *

Gabriel looked up from his tablet, making an expression that Nathalie knew too well.

She watched him with bated breath as he looked from the window, to the time, to Emilie's portrait, and then stood.

"Sir, please don't."

He strode confidently to the invisible platform in the floor, his back to her. Then he hesitated, and before he could make up his mind, Nathalie had rushed to the other side of the room and placed one foot on the platform, putting all of her weight on it.

"_Please_ don't."

"You're not over this?" he asked her tartly.

"You just...you have no idea what you're doing."

He faced her now, displeased with her intervention, but not anything more. "You say that like I haven't been doing this for as long as I have."

"Fine. You have no idea what you've _been_ doing. Better?"

Her own exasperation seemed to amuse him. "You know, intense emotions like these do fade rather quickly. I don't have much time to idle. It is best to take action as soon as I can. So..." He pressed his own foot into hers, attempting to push it off the platform.

She pushed back. "You're being childish."

"And you're not helping your case by disrespecting me. Get off."

Because she was wearing a heels, he managed to stick the top half of his foot under her shoe and lift it off the platform. Nathalie nearly lost her balance, but Gabriel took her by the shoulder to stabilize her. His grip was incredibly firm, holding her in place so that she wouldn't attempt to thwart him again.

"If it makes you feel any better, I promise not to cause any more natural disasters today." He actually had the nerve to smile at her. Then he let go and disappeared through the floor, leaving her alone in the office.

* * *

Gabriel was a mystery to her sometimes, because it was entirely possible he had done something foolish with complete and utter resolution, as when he chose to akumatize the pigeon man as many times as he did (Nathalie had suggested in the past to reduce the frequency of his exploits and only take advantage of victims with incredible potential. He preferred to take every chance that presented itself). This time, she wondered, perhaps boldly, that he had taken to heart at least an element of what she had said to him. She'd been left to her own devices for just over a half hour before Gabriel returned to the office and got back to work without a word or a glance. Nathalie had no idea what kind of akuma he had sent out that day, but she figured it had to have been a weak one. She was grateful for a minute or two, but she knew she wasn't going to be completely happy until Hawkmoth no longer stood in opposition with Chat Noir, feeble akuma, or competent.

This family hadn't always been broken, but it had always been fragile, so when Emilie fell into her sleep, the household lost a weight bearing wall and the whole thing crashed down in a bloom of glittering dust. Ever since, there was nothing to be felt among the wreckage but pain and resentment and despair, growing deeper and growing larger. Everyone was either audacious or foolishly optimistic enough to believe that it could all be fixed. All they had to do was raise the wall. Except Nathalie had finally defied her willful naiveté long enough to see that even if this one wall stood again, the rest of the house was still in shambles. Nathalie didn't count on it being repairable anymore.

Yet, that may have been a selfish thing to think. She knew how much Emilie meant to them. As much as the thought of father and son on opposite sides of an ongoing battle sickened her, to reject the possibility of Emilie's return fixing everything was only for her own comfort. It had always been. She remembered the failure of Style Queen and what it had done to Gabriel. She remembered the feeling of her arms laid around his shoulders, her cheek pressed into his hair. She remembered how she held on tighter when he whispered, "It's over", aching for him, sighing out a breath she tried to disguise as anything but relief.

Nathalie had always been an intelligent woman with exceptional foresight. But the truth was, she didn't know what to expect out of this narrative.

At 6:30, Gabriel took his dinner in the office, and Nathalie chose to leave him to it. Across the foyer, the doors to the dining room were open wide. She could hear the light scraping of silverware against a plate, and her heart raced.

_Be realistic, Nathalie, for once_, she told herself. The voice inside her head had more vigor than she felt she was capable of enforcing aloud. She hugged her tablet to her chest and crossed from the office to the dining room. Adrien sat at the head of the table as usual. His head was low, and his eyes seemed to stare into empty space.

Nathalie cleared her throat. "Adrien."

He jumped, fork grazing across the plate and produced a screeching metallic note that made her cringe. "Sorry," he yelped. Promptly setting his fork down, he smoothed his hair. The discomfort in the room was palpable. Nathalie was nearly compelled to apologize and abandon the situation, but she made the brave choice to close the doors instead.

She wanted to be level to him, so she sat down. His green eyes watched her every move, bright with fear, and she thought that perhaps it was a relief that he looked as nervous as she felt. They had some common ground, being so uneasy, but that didn't change the fact that she knew far more than he did. That was a comfort three days ago, now it was eating her alive.

To his and her own surprise, she reached over and grabbed his trembling hand. "Let's calm down. It's just the two of us right now."

He held her gaze earnestly as he inhaled and exhaled through his nose until his hand stopped shaking. "Okay," he murmured.

"Everything is fine."

She feared he had caught the lie in her voice because his eyes went wide. He blurted, "Are you going to tell Father? I know you probably want to, but you really, really shouldn't. No one should know about my identity. Not even Ladybug knows."

"I'm not going to tell him," she murmured.

"Because if you do, he'll flip out. He won't want me to continue. He'll say it's too dangerous. But Paris needs me, Nathalie. And Ladybug."

If Adrien was this terrified of Gabriel merely forbidding him from being a superhero, Nathalie didn't want to imagine how awful he would feel to know the whole truth. Her throat felt incredibly dry all of the sudden, but she forced the words out. "I'm not going to tell him, Adrien."

Hearing it a second time seemed to reassure him only slightly. He leaned back in his chair, shoulders tense. "I was just so grateful that you hadn't told him yet. He surely would have confronted me by now if he knew that I'm..." he lowered his voice, "Chat Noir. But I didn't know how long you would wait. If you were thinking of the right words to say – or if you would make me tell him!"

"I'm not that cruel, Adrien." Though, Nathalie wasn't sure of that.

"I wouldn't have transformed if I had the choice," he went on, "but it was the only way to get us out of there."

"I know."

"That's why I was being so stubborn. I didn't want you to find out. I had to protect Paris, but this just..." Adrien made a fist under Nathalie's hand. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"I know, and I'm sorry," whispered Nathalie gently. "But I was responsible for you. I was just doing my job, and more importantly, I care about your safety. Had I already known you were Chat Noir, maybe I would have just let you go. But I didn't, and I was worried. I'd be worried either way." The walls of her throat seemed to stick together as she added, "Hawkmoth is dangerous."

At this, Adrien actually smiled. "Oh, is he? I haven't noticed. Maybe if he was better at being a super villain, I'd actually be afraid of him," he laughed playfully.

This made her feel ill, but Nathalie feigned amusement. "Right, he did akumatize the pigeon man, what, twenty-five times? What a fool."

Adrien chuckled, but then a shadow fell over his face. His free hand scratched at the table top contemplatively. "I guess what I mean is, he's not dangerous to me. But I have a miraculous. I can handle him, with Ladybug's partnership, of course." He nodded at Nathalie. "But you're, no offense, just an average citizen. You knowing my identity puts you in danger. If Hawkmoth somehow found out that you knew, that you were important to me, then he'd target you. That's what I'm really afraid of."

Despite everything, she was touched. "Well, then you have nothing to worry about. I'm not telling anybody."

"That's all I needed to hear you say." All of the anxiety that had been following him since Saturday seemed to have been lifted from his body. He brightened up, like a flower turning its face to the sun. "To tell you the truth, I've been dying for somebody to know. It gets kinda lonely being a superhero."

"I can imagine," Nathalie said, finally pulling her hand away.

"Now, I can tell you what happens in the thick of a fight. And all about Ladybug. She's amazing, Nathalie, you have no idea." Adrien picked up his fork and continued eating. Nathalie took that as her cue to leave. As she got up from her chair, he told her, "I'm really glad it's you who knows. You've always been there for us. I know that I can trust you no matter what."

She paused just in front of the door. When she turned around to face him again, he was giving her one of his charming smiles, as though to provide just a touch more convincing that he was telling her the truth, that he did earnestly trust her, that he believed she deserved just as much relief about their situation as she'd given him. Nathalie didn't need it. She had believed him right away.

"You look so shocked," said Adrien light-heartedly. Nathalie realized she had been gaping at him and shut her mouth. "I mean, you know how much we rely on you. I know you might feel all this responsibility for knowing my secret, but I'm sure it's nothing you can't handle. You're one of the most trustworthy, loyal people I know."

"Stop," she whispered.

He blinked sympathetically. "I'm sorry. I know you don't like compliments. Forget I said anything. And...thanks."

Nathalie felt her chest tighten, her breaths becoming shallower. She left quickly. The last thing she wanted was to fumble her composure again, to sink deeper into her distress and continue to let it percolate all of her thoughts, everything she did and said. She was supposed to be good at keeping walls up, but Adrien's words rang through her head like a loud, shrill bell.

_I know I can trust you no matter what_.

Trust her? Who was she? Attentive assistant by day and vicious super villain by whenever-she-was-needed, who just days ago was shameless enough to relish in the power her miraculous granted her (and even more so, the closeness it gave her to her ally). She was the one throwing everything away and convincing herself that it made her happy, the one spitting at the sound of Ladybug's name, the one who was willing to do everything in her power to take down the saviors of the city, who did so with a smile on her face even as she coughed the life out of her body the second that power was relinquished.

That was the person Adrien trusted.

She almost threw her tablet across the foyer. Anger came as heat in her face and guilt was the wrenching of her stomach. She didn't feel like she could breathe enough, and maybe it was because she didn't deserve to breathe. Half of her was fighting to get a grip, tuck back the strand of hair that had come loose, and sit at her desk in contemplative silence while she let herself think about everything but how disgusted she was with herself; the other half wanted to betray her stoic nature and escape into the night, so she could be as far away as possible from the people she was doomed to hurt.

When she returned to the office, she may have shut the door a little too vehemently, because Gabriel glared at her from his seat. She was too outraged with herself to apologize. Without a word she crossed the room to her desk and jammed her cell phone into her pocket.

She heard Gabriel shift. "I can feel your emotions," he reminded her. His tone was just slightly thorny, which angered her more. She chose not to respond. He was trying to make her self-assess and calm down, so that he didn't have to be distracted by the constant jabs of her emotions. Not sensing any change in her, he went on, "Shame, humiliation, and –" a sudden pause, his eyes darkening – " wow, self-loathing..."

"Stop, Gabriel," she growled, logging out of her computer.

He was quiet, as though still mulling over what he had found. Then he went on, "Intense, bone-deep. I can't imagine what could gave rattled you this much to make you feel like-"

Something dark and invisible inside Nathalie rushed up her esophagus and revealed itself with a vicious, "Shut up." She shot him a heated glare, and his mouth snapped shut. She didn't realize she had been hiding that kind of temper. "You can't just do that. You can't read me like that. It isn't fair."

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. "You don't seem to have a problem when I do it to anyone else."

Nathalie shook him off and walked back to the door, digging her car keys out of her pocket. "I'm going home."

His eyes flicked to the time and back. "This early?"

"I'm tired," asserted Nathalie, grabbing the door knob. More quietly, she added, "And I don't want to be here anymore."

He let her go. She wondered for half a second if there was something resembling remorse on his face, but she didn't want to stick around long enough to find out. She shut the door behind her just as loudly as when she had come in and nearly ran for her car.

The sunset was turning the city orange, and the Parisians walking along the street moved with ease, like they didn't have weights tied to their ankles or hearts made of dense, cold stone. Nathalie wasn't like them. She felt like the world was trying to pull her into its core and drown her in magma and metal. She raised the volume of the radio louder and louder, but it failed to muffle the roaring of blood in her ears.

A memory pried its way into her mind. She was Mayura, elegant and strong and evil, electrified by the thrill of forgetting whatever moral conflict had once held her back from this beautiful, delicious power. The truth was, before she'd become Mayura, the threat of the peacock's side effects meant had little to her. She just hadn't loved truly enough, just wasn't quite desperate enough to become something she knew deserved the hatred of the city. Time wore were away, _he_ wore her away until she had not just a taste, but a craving for villainy and all its marvelous power.

Mayura was running, her skirt flapping behind her and her heels clicking on the rooftops of the buildings she scaled with the speed of a bird in flight. She was dark and blue, and she melted into the night. The full moon hung low in the sky, its white light glowering like an accusatory eye, but Mayura said _fuck it_. She didn't care. She was empty-handed like every akuma that had come before her, but she had learned like her partner to be patient with failure. He'd learned because he didn't have a choice. She learned because she loved being Mayura. She loved creating monsters from the stitches of despair, controlling their every will, punching gaping holes into buildings and ripping branches from trees because it made her feel like she could _do something _other than what she was made for. Her heart raced every time one of her creations attacked Ladybug or Chat Noir, her enemies. One day, Mayura told herself, they would be dust between her fingers.

Nathalie jumped when her phone vibrated in the cupholder beside her. Gabriel had texted her. She threw her phone into the passenger seat face down.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Everything inside of her that Mayura was made of was ordering her to drink this all in like wine and stop falling apart. She knew who Chat Noir was. That alone made her more powerful than she had ever been, more powerful than Hawkmoth, and more powerful than Ladybug. There was more than enough evil within her to let her hear that whisper in her brain.

When Nathalie got home, she tossed her phone onto her bed and tried to keep herself from pulling her hair out. A floor to ceiling bookshelf towered over anything else in the apartment, and she decided to completely reorganize it. At first, they'd been arranged alphabetically by the author's name. She piled every book on the floor - there must have been hundreds - and started again, ordering them by publishing date, the oldest books touching the ceiling, the newest low enough to kick. Then, she dusted every surface she could reach, washed all of her dishes by hand even though they were all clean, showered, folded and re-folded all the clothes in her dresser, and suddenly she was standing back over her bed, staring at her phone with nothing left to keep her from it but what few hours she had left to sleep.

What she found was more than she had bargained for. Sometime in the hours that she had been cleaning, Adrien had texted her too.

_Father told me you left early. I hope I didn't upset you somehow_.

Nathalie didn't know how to answer that. Guiltily, she closed the message and started to read what Gabriel had sent her.

_Good evening._

She was far too upset to react, but there was something pitiful about him beginning with a formality given the current state of their relationship, especially since she knew he preferred to skip them. Nathalie didn't know if that made her the pathetic one, or him. She kept reading.

_Upon reflection, I realized that I may have been speaking out of line. I should have been more sensitive. I apologize. Nathalie, you are a level-headed woman, and it's one of the reasons I trust you so intimately. I am concerned that your behavior these last few days is deeper than you are letting on. I don't know if it's really about Adrien, or if it's about me, or us, but I need you to be more communicative. We can't afford to be shaken like this. _

_I'll see you tomorrow, I hope you'll be willing to speak with me candidly._

Nathalie reread it. True to form, Gabriel had managed to say everything without explicitly bringing up their situation. She had to wonder if he truly knew how to put it into unambiguously. She kept coming back to the same few words.

_...about me, or us..._

She locked her phone. _What us? There is no us. There is only Hawkmoth and Mayura_. She was nothing but a fool who wanted something she could never have and decided to write her own grim fate instead. Gabriel didn't need her, but she was all that he had.

Nathalie fell on her bed and opened Adrien's text again. She wrote back, _You've done nothing wrong. Everything is going to be okay_.

The second half may have been a lie, but one thing was for sure. She had to change something. She had to change _everything_.

It was time for this awful story to come to an end.


	6. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suddenly, Mayura was standing in Nathalie's living room, and she grabbed the wall as soon as she felt herself being severed apart to make room for the euphoria that Nathalie wouldn't have been able to weather on her own. Her fingernails scraped at the ash-gray paint as though she was trying to claw the two halves of her mind back into a single piece. She fought for as long as it took to stand in her room without trembling with the rush of her own power.
> 
> A deep breath passed through her lungs. She felt like she was breathing electricity.
> 
> Her fan snapped open in a single robotic movement. Now, we wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To reiterate, I wrote this a few months ago, so any inconsistencies you see in Duusu's character or Mayura's power are to due the fact Refleckdoll and Ladybug just hadn't been released yet. I hope you still enjoy!

Chapter Five

When Nathalie was eleven, she stole a journal.

She had wandered into a bookstore one afternoon because her parents wanted her out of the house and her sister had friends to take refuge with whenever they weren't allowed inside. Nathalie, however, was younger and shier, and she tended to sit in the corner in silence while busying herself with anything but interactions with other people. There was one bookstore down the street from her house that she visited often with her mother, even though they rarely bought anything. She got most of her reading material from the library.

The bookstore was much smaller than the library, but Nathalie liked it more. Perhaps because everything inside felt as though it must have been more important simply because it was only exchangeable with money. Nathalie was drawn to important things. They made her feel closer to having a purpose.

She had been walking up and down the shelves for several minutes, fingers brushing against every spine that looked interesting before she came across a small section of the store that sold calendars, photo albums, and blank journals. Usually this was an easy aisle to skip, but something had caught her eye this time. One of the journals sitting on the shelf was a deep blue-violet color, decorated along its edges with an ornate golden design that caught the fluorescent lights. A long golden bookmark fell out of the spine and was draped over the front cover. Nathalie could see it fluttering in the draft of the AC.

She picked it up. It was only about eighteen centimeters in length, but it was dense, and the paper felt delicate. She had never had anything like this to write in before, other than notebooks left over from school years that had passed. The problem was she had no money on her, and there was no way that her parents would be giving her any without completing at least a week's worth of chores. Even then, she'd probably only have half of what she needed to buy it. Nathalie didn't have that time to waste.

It probably wasn't in her nature to steal, but she was willing to do it when it was the only way to get something she needed, and she needed this journal, because it was ornate and special and it would make what she had to say feel like it actually mattered. She bit her lip in contemplation, debating the consequences of getting caught; for one, she would have to wait a while before letting anybody actually see it, in case they were to ask where she acquired it from and how, and of course, she'd have to be extremely careful taking it out of the store.

Nathalie hid the journal under her shirt and crossed her arms over it. It wasn't a perfect cheat by any means, but it wasn't like she had a bag she could stuff it inside. Quickly, she made her away out of the store, not looking any other customers or employees in the eye. Nathalie thought she may have actually gotten away with it when she finally stepped out into the street, but her heart dropped out of her chest when a hand settled upon her shoulder.

"Where are you going, sweetheart?" asked a gruff voice. Nathalie whirled around to look up at a man in his sixties with milky blue eyes and stern white eyebrows, wearing a name tag with the bookstore's logo on it. The smile on his face looked very misplaced.

"I'm - I'm going home," Nathalie answered, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "I'm leaving now. Bye."

He didn't let her go, grabbing her wrist instead and prying it away from her body. The journal fell out from under her shirt and slapped onto the sidewalk. Nathalie didn't wait for a punishment. She wrenched her wrist out of the man's grip and fled down the street as fast as she could, never looking back. She did not set foot in that bookstore for two years and refused to tell her mother why.

She also hadn't stolen anything since, aside from the gift Marinette had given Adrien for his fourteenth birthday. But she didn't count that one, because it was something that had already been knowingly handed into her possession. In addition, she had technically been trying to steal the miraculous of Ladybug and Chat Noir through employment of her sentimonsters and Hawkmoth's akumas, but it wasn't without the heroes' awareness of their intentions. This was a fight that had been going on for over a year.

Now, Nathalie was determined to put an end to it. And it required her to steal, for the first real time in over two decades. The only thing she was grateful for now was that she'd gotten a lot smarter. It wasn't difficult to work out her plan. All she needed was to be careful, more careful than she had ever been in her life.

Caution, however, wasn't the challenge. Tenacity was.

Gabriel drew her out of her thoughts sometime in the midmorning. "You've been quiet," he said from across the room.

"I'm always quiet, sir," she replied, not looking up from her computer screen, which had had the same email open for the past half hour. She'd scanned her eyes over it probably a dozen times, not once actually reading it.

"Yes, but you're _very _quiet today, just as you were for the last several." Nathalie was incredibly aware of his eyes despite not looking at him. She scrolled through the email aimlessly as he took a moment to observe her. He asked, "Did you get my text message after you left last night?"

"I did."

"So, do you want to talk?"

"Talking so far hasn't solved any problems, so I don't see the point in trying again."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him stir in his chair. Nathalie sighed to cut the tension in the room and attempted to read the email for real this time.

He interrupted her half a sentence in. "You're sounding like your usual self now."

"Am I?" She assessed the tone of her voice.

"Yes..."

"I suppose that's a good thing, sir?"

"I don't know." This response caused her to glance up, though just briefly, only so she could view the look on his face. Everything looked tight, his jaw, his lips, his brow, but his eyes were soft. They made her look away again.

"Well, I personally don't see how it could be a problem," she replied. Her words were matter-of-fact on the surface, but they were barbed underneath, hopefully a hint that she didn't want to continue discussing it.

Either he didn't detect it, or he chose to ignore it. "I don't think it sounds right, Nathalie. My point is that I still get the sense that you're disturbed by something. And as I wrote you last night, we can't afford that."

Nathalie's eyelids twitched as she tried to maintain her expressionless visage. His message was written out in her head, every word already inked into her memory against her preference to have forgotten it completely. She couldn't refrain from hearing the uncomfortable blend of cool professionalism and honest concern in the words that had punctuated a confrontation bordering on cruelty. She glanced at him warily. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," he answered.

"And will you assure me you won't get angry?"

At this, Gabriel hesitated, but he agreed after a moment, much more quietly. "Of course."

Nathalie finally withdrew from her computer and laid her eyes fiercely on Gabriel. "Do you really care about me, about what's happening to me? Or am I just a means to an end? Like anything else? Like a glorified akuma?" She couldn't stifle the bitterness in her voice. "I meant it when I said I'd do anything to help you. Is that the only reason I matter at all?"

For quite a while he was still, and Nathalie tried to maintain the courage to hold his fearsome stare. He was not a man known for keeping promises. The one he made to his wife was the exception, and in that case, he was only trying his best to fulfill it with no concrete hope that he would actually succeed. So, Nathalie had no trouble believing for those multiple silent seconds that he would blow up on her for daring to question their relationship. The first thing that moved were his eye brows, which angled into a hard scowl. Immediately, Nathalie's heart skipped a beat.

"I know..." he began, his voice thin and rattling, trying to contain the rage she knew had to be bubbling on the inside, "I know we've had...moments of closeness. Primarily as Hawkmoth and Mayura, but sometimes as ourselves. I don't think I could tell you with complete certainty that I _don't_ care about you intimately." He clearly didn't like sound of his words aloud, because his face changed, and he looked away. "You are willing to go to extreme lengths to help me. You know I must cherish your selflessness, but if things were any other way-"

"You pity me," Nathalie stated soberly. "That's it."

He seemed alarmed by this. Perhaps it was the truth, but then again - "Nathalie, I-"

"I know you trust me. You wouldn't have told me anything if you didn't, but the only thing that makes me anything more than an accomplice to you is that damn peacock miraculous." Nathalie caught herself raising her voice and clamped her mouth shut.

"Well, that doesn't make me much worse than you, does it?" Gabriel said. The words themselves were harsh, but his voice was more unsettled than angry. "Surely the whole reason you were willing to keep my secret in the first place is because you felt sorry for me and for what I've lost." Nathalie couldn't deny it, so he leaned back in his chair and ran a hand down his face in exhaustion. "Shit, I'm sorry, okay? I know this is awful. For all the fun we let ourselves think we have, this sure is a fucking shit show."

When Gabriel cursed, it was because he was unconsciously leveling himself to her. Nathalie sensed that she was close to tears. She took off her glasses and pressed her fingers into her eyes. "It's worse than you think." He looked at her keenly but didn't ask what she meant; maybe her words had been buried by the gravel in her voice. They both sat for several minutes in total silence. Adrien was at school, and aside from the two of them, the mansion was empty. Nathalie had never heard the place so quiet.

She was the one to speak first. "I want this to be over."

"I know."

"I'm so tired."

He sighed. "So am I."

She came way too close to telling him what she was going to do, just to get it out of her throat, just so it wasn't suffocating her for the rest of the day, but she said no more. Having wiped away just a couple silent tears, she put her glasses back on and read the email on her screen from start to finish.

This was the beginning of the end.

* * *

The next time Gabriel left the office to use the bathroom, Nathalie grabbed the peacock miraculous. When he returned, she was sitting at her desk, pretending to be busy. In actuality, she was typing, _Why am I doing this?_ repeatedly.

The rest of the day moved at an excruciatingly slow pace. She and Gabriel exchanged no words, but several times they met each other's eyes and considered it. She didn't know what he was thinking, but she had come to decide that there was nothing really left to say.

Adrien had fencing that day after school, but he had sent her another text in the interim between his last class and practice. _Hi Nathalie, I hope you're feeling better today_.

She replied with another lie. _I'm doing very well. Thank you_.

As night drew closer, she started to feel nauseous, but she chose to eat dinner anyway. For everything to go exactly right, she was going to need as much energy as possible. Her anxiety worsened to the point that her hands were trembling, and every other heart beat seemed to fail her. Gabriel must have noticed, but their hostile dialogue that had taken place the evening before gave him pause. He did nothing more but glance at her with interest.

She didn't leave as early as she did the previous day, but Gabriel did dismiss her ahead of time. She figured it was because neither of them was very willing to spend more time around each other than was necessary. When she had made it home, she tossed all of her other things aside and pinned the peacock brooch to her shirt.

A fist-sized sphere of blue light rose in front of her face before her kwami manifested in the middle of the living room. Duusu's magenta eyes looked Nathalie up and down, and then scanned the apartment.

"We aren't in the lair," she stated, as though Nathalie was unaware.

"Yeah, well, Hawkmoth doesn't know I brought you here," Nathalie replied, whispering through her teeth as though the man himself stood in the next room. "And if I fail tonight, I'd prefer he never find out. So, don't tell him or Nooroo."

"Yes, I promise," said Duusu, nodding gravely. "But I have a quick question: what are we doing here? What are you planning?" Nathalie walked past Duusu, removing her blazer and draping it over the sofa. She turned on a lamp. "You feel...scared. You're never scared. The only time you were ever scared was when you thought Hawkmoth was going to be defeated on Heroes' Day."

"Duusu, I know you don't want to be used for evil purposes. Hopefully, after tonight, you won't ever have to participate again," Nathalie breathed. This excited the kwami. A burst of energy flared from her body like a tiny firework. "But that's _only_ if we succeed tonight. Do you understand? First, I need a host. Duusu, transform me."

Suddenly, Mayura was standing in Nathalie's living room, and she grabbed the wall as soon as she felt herself being severed apart to make room for the euphoria that Nathalie wouldn't have been able to weather on her own. Her fingernails scraped at the ash-gray paint as though she was trying to claw the two halves of her mind back into a single piece. She fought for as long as it took to stand in her room without trembling with the rush of her own power.

A deep breath passed through her lungs. She felt like she was breathing electricity.

Her fan snapped open in a single robotic movement._ Now, we wait_.

Mayura sat on the floor, holding her fan to her lips, and reaching out with the sixth sense her miraculous gave her. She needed to feel a specific kind of pain in order for this to work. It was incredible and overwhelming all of the things she could feel when she searched for it herself. Usually, she and Hawkmoth waited for something strong enough to alert them first. With her eyes closed, hidden in the dark of her apartment, Mayura thought she could see a map of the city laid out by the emotions of its inhabitants. She could see a joyful family game night behind the walls of a house just down the street, while several blocks away, a married couple pulsed with the frustration of an argument moving in circles. All at once, she knew exactly how everybody in her building was feeling. She could see them move. She could feel them breathe.

It was too much, her senses snapped back into place and she opened her eyes with a gasp. It was clear why she and Hawkmoth never dared to use their power like this. She didn't even know if _he_ actually could. But her miraculous was damaged. When unimpaired, the kwami's power was regulated through the miraculous so it could be wielded with more control. Hers, however, was too broken to contain all of Duusu's energy. Sometimes, Mayura could feel it spilling out of her. She really could drown in it if she wasn't careful.

Another task was noted: keep Nathalie in tact.

She took a deep breath. This time when she reached out, she searched only for what she was looking for. Anything else faded away into the blackness, though not before some brief, enticing flashes in her mind.

It took a while, because she had to take in everything slowly. Mayura grounded herself by breathing consciously, counting the seconds in every inhale and exhale. She tried not to let her mind stray, she tried not to let herself get lost in her own power. Breathing was easier. Her head was clearer. The emotions were brilliant. She had to tame the euphoria. This wasn't like every other exploit. This was the end, and she was reaching it alone.

Something lit up inside her head: a blue-gray light that radiated the exact feeling she had been looking for. She knew there would be somebody in Paris who could provide her what she needed.

Mayura opened her eyes and got to her feet, holding on to the scent of her host. Cool, like mint, but pungent and sour. She plucked a feather from her fan, transformed it with her magic and blew it out her open window, out into the city.

It was quiet. She wished she could at least talk to Duusu.

When the feather reached its victim – a woman crouched in the corner of her bedroom – Mayura spoke to her softly, "I am Mayura. I can feel your humiliation, your dread. I'm sorry, but I need it. You might enjoy what I make though, something that can move unseen, just as you wish you could."

She could feel the shock of her host. Mayura didn't wait for an agreement, she leeched the woman's pain and spun it into a sentimonster, a snake-like creature whose eyes and power she would use to take what she needed. The monster's power was to become intangible at her will, able to phase through matter and remain hidden from all other eyes.

Mayura fished for her phone. The time read 10:00 pm. In order for this to work, Adrien needed to be asleep.

She could have snuck into his room and stolen it from him herself, but she had no way of hiding if he were to awaken. This sentimonster was far more discreet than she could manage to be. More importantly, she wasn't sure if she could stand over him, look him in the face, and steal his miraculous with her own two blue hands without hating herself too strongly to leave. Though, there wasn't much protection from that anyway. Even if she was successful, he could easily wake later to find his ring missing. Who else could he suspect but the one person who was aware of his identity? Mayura had to work quickly. If reality hadn't been altered by the morning, it was over for her, and by extension, Hawkmoth.

The sentimonster slithered down the streets of Paris. Seeing through its eyes, Mayura knew it wasn't too far from the Agreste mansion. She guided it through every turn as it moved unseen along the curb. Once they had arrived at the house, she commanded it to become intangible in order to phase through the gate and the front door. The foyer was dark, but Mayura saw the white light spilling out from under the office door. Gabriel was still working at this hour. She didn't honestly know if he ever slept.

Slipping by the office and up the stairs, the sentimonster paused in front of Adrien's bedroom door. The lights were off, and if Adrien was asleep, he hasn't been asleep for long. Mayura knew that stage four deep sleep occurred rather soon after losing consciousness. Her monster phased through the door.

She heard the sound of faint snoring as soon as they entered, which drew out a breath of relief. Mayura ordered the sentimonster onto Adrien's bed. On a pillow lying next to his head, the kwami Plagg was curled into a tiny ball. She'd hoped the black cat's slothful character would ensure he was a deep sleeper; she was far more frightened of him awakening than Adrien.

The sentimonster laid coiled at the foot of the bed. Adrien's hands were hidden under the covers, seeming, by the shape of the blanket, to be clutched over his chest.

Mayura swallowed hard. "Tickle his face."

It advanced slowly, crawling just at the edge of the bed so as to not graze against Adrien's sleeping form. Mayura held her breath as though she were the one in the room. The sentimonster lifted its tail into the air and reached towards Adrien's face. With a quick, fluttering motion, it lightly brushed the tip of its tail over Adrien's nose before withdrawing quickly. He didn't stir. Boldly, Mayura commanded the monster to try again, this time with a little more force.

Adrien's right hand emerged from the covers and pawed at his nose, nearly touching the sentimonster's tail. He turned to lay on his side, and his hand fell just in front of his face. If Mayura wasn't careful, the act of removing the ring would surely arouse him from his slumber. The sentimonster proceeded very slowly. It unhinged its mouth and fastened its fangs over the ring, careful not to make contact with his actual finger. Then, it receded, folding back into its coil with the miraculous. Beside Adrien's head, Plagg vanished, still snoring as he dove into the ring.

Mayura wasted no time, she commanded the sentimonster out of the mansion as swiftly as it could move. Her vision blurred at the edges, both with the speed of travel and with the thrill of having actually succeeded. But she couldn't get ahead of herself. Only half of her plan had been accomplished. She still needed Ladybug's earrings.

The senitmonster phased through the door of her apartment and allowed itself to become tangible. Mayura held her hand out to the floor, and the serpent-like creature wrapped around her arm. Once it had spat the miraculous into her palm, Mayura relinquished her aid. The sentimonster dissolved into spots of darkness, and somewhere, a feather peeled away from some poor woman's bracelet.

Mayura fell to her knees, utterly exhausted and disgusted with herself. But this was the easy part.

The ring felt as though it was burning a hole into her hand. She was amazed. Hawkmoth had made countless attempts to get his hands on this exact miraculous, and so many of them were wasted on akumas who were too absorbed with their own objectives to take it when Chat Noir had fallen victim to their power. She could almost laugh at how simple it had actually been, and it would have been even simpler if she had been shameless enough to yank it from Adrien's hand herself.

A tall mirror leaned against the wall between her bedroom and bathroom door. Mayura had never seen herself look so disheveled, and she hadn't even _done_ anything yet. Maybe she was finally seeing herself for how ugly she truly was inside.

Resisting the urge to shatter her reflection into a thousand razor-sharp fragments, Mayura straightened herself and started executing the second phase of her plan.

* * *

The challenge was getting Ladybug's attention without getting Adrien's, and what made it so ambitious was that Mayura had no guess as to Ladybug's identity. She and Hawkmoth had narrowed the heroes' civilian forms down to the kids at Adrien's school, but even that was just a theory. Now she knew it was at least half-correct, but whether it was more or less likely now that Ladybug attended the same institution was beyond her. Either the master intended them to be strangers, or he intended them to be friends.

She paced up and down her living room, trying to devise a sentimonster in her mind that could summon Ladybug while also managing to be discreet. Ideally, no one would but she and Ladybug would have any awareness of what was occurring that night, but the more she thought about it, the less she believed it was going to be possible. She'd hoped to make her wish before sunrise and return the ring to Adrien's finger before he even knew it had been stolen. But she couldn't stop herself from worrying that in the last hour he may have simply gotten out of bed for a glass of water to find the kwami of his pillow missing and his miraculous along with him.

Mayura eventually stopped and gazed at the black ring still in her hand. It glistened in the lamplight with the sweat of her clammy palms. The longer she spent rejecting the idea of using it herself, the wearier she felt. Perhaps, it didn't matter. Perhaps, she could let the whole city know what she had done, and as long as she was finished before the daylight, she would never have to face Adrien again. That was her plan whether he found out or not.

"Whatever," Mayura hissed aloud, closing her fist over the ring. She turned her lamp off and went to the open window. "Just get it done and stop being a coward. You're too horrendous to be a coward."

She plunged into the night. Mayura was usually a silent and agile threat, leaping from rooftop to rooftop without making a sound, but in her dark mood, she managed to stumble when she landed on a lifting door on the roof of a bakery, sending a sudden bang through the structure. She was shaken by her error, but there was no time to worry too much about it. She had to keep moving. What she needed was to destroy something large, something that would get all of Paris's attention. The Eiffel Tower was a golden landmark in the dark of night, and it was where Mayura directed her pursuit.

For a moment she thought about the number of times the iconic structure had been in peril. To turn the whole thing to dust at her touch almost didn't sound so ridiculous in her mind, and it probably wouldn't have at all if circumstances were different. The miraculous in her hand was growing heavy with the weight of what it was capable of. Since knowing Adrien was Chat Noir, she had never truly thought about how frequently he had inflicted destruction by only the touch of his right hand, destruction that only Ladybug could reverse. Mayura couldn't imagine Adrien, sweet and harmless and innocent, wielding that kind of power. Yet, it was a reality almost every day. She'd seen him do it with her own eyes.

Mayura landed clumsily once again, this time her foot getting wedged between a potted plant at a rooftop ledge. When she made another leap, she fell short and slammed into the ledge of the building across the alleyway. With the ring in her hand, she was unable to get a firm grip, and she slipped from the side of the building. She landed on her feet, but the pain in her ribs forced her to her knees.

_Stand up. Keep moving_, she told herself.

She had almost taken back to the sky, but just as she took her first leap, Mayura was yanked back down, dropped onto her stomach. She looked back to see a red and black yo-yo wrapped around her ankle.

Ladybug landed on the other side of the alleyway, blue eyes glaring through the shadow blanketing her body. As soon as they had met each other's gazes, Ladybug pulled on her yo-yo like a fisherman after its prey, but Mayura pulled back, her ankle coming loose from its hold. She scrambled to her feet and faced the hero, panting as sharp pain bloomed through her ribcage.

"What are you doing out here?" Ladybug demanded, taking a step closer. Her eyes flicked around from the buildings on either side of them to the sky. "Is there an akuma with you? A sentimonster?"

"How did you know I was here?" asked Mayura.

"I followed you. You landed on my roof and woke me up. So, thanks for that." Ladybug tossed her yo-yo again, but Mayura struck it with her fan, sending it spiraling into the wall next to her. She caught it when it bounced back, and she gave it a brisk yank, pulling Ladybug onto the ground just as she had done to her. Mayura charged at the hero, but she leaped quickly back to her feet and sailed over Mayura's head. Mayura just managed to evade a kick to the skull. Ladybug landed at the other end of the alley. She blew the bangs out of her eyes. "Now, answer me. What are you doing out here?"

"I hadn't planned for you to meet me so early," grumbled Mayura.

"Yeah, well, I tend to be rather lucky." Ladybug seemed to catch Mayura's exact words and narrowed her eyes. "Meet you?"

"I guess I shouldn't complain. I needed your attention. Now I have it." Mayura cracked open her fan and held it over her mouth as she spoke. "You have something I need."

"My miraculous? That's not new." Ladybug wound her yo-yo, but her fierce expression faltered when Mayura held out her fan like an outstretched hand signaling, stop. She fell to her knees, looking at Ladybug passively. "What are you doing?" the hero asked uneasily.

"I think I might be tired of fighting," Mayura replied thinly. "I just want to talk." Ladybug was skeptical, still spinning her yo-yo. "I'm alone, aren't I?"

"I don't know," Ladybug mumbled, her eyes searched her surroundings again but still saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Mayura sighed, wincing at the pain in her ribs. She was exhausted, but how could she expect Ladybug to cooperate with her requests? They'd been enemies for months now. But she felt like she was being eaten at from the inside. Everything that had once made her feel powerful as Mayura now made her feel like a monster. If she just gave in to that intoxication, let it seep into her blood and surge like lightning through every heartbeat, maybe her horror would fade to the corners of her mind. But Mayura didn't deserve that euphoria. Nathalie didn't deserve that freedom, however temporary.

Ladybug was merciful, and she was perceptive. Gingerly, she murmured, "Something about you is off. Your eyes, they're less..." she swallowed apologetically, "...crazed."

Mayura gave a weak smile. "Please, I just want to talk."

After several moments of contemplation, Ladybug gave in. "Okay." She sat down cross-legged, quite a fair distance away. Mayura could see how on edge she was, never quite settling into her own body, always hovering just a few centimeters outside of it, taking in everything around her as her eyes remained fixed ahead. "What do you have to say?"

She began boldly. "I need your earrings. But I don't want to fight for them."

"Oh, and how do you expect to get them from me?" asked Ladybug, already appearing to regret her compliance.

"Ladybug, I can't keep doing this anymore. I've seen things I wish I could unsee, that I wish were only dreams. Alas, reality is cold-blooded." Mayura played with Chat Noir's miraculous out of view. She tried not to picture Adrien's peaceful sleeping face as she slipped it off his finger. "I won't lie to you. I loved this. I loved this more than anything, but I know now that it needs to stop."

The dim night lights pouring into the alleyway made Ladybug's eyes look golden as she stared at Mayura wordlessly. She clutched her yo-yo at her hip, ready to use it if the conversation were to take a turn. She had nothing to say yet.

"The longer we fight, the worse this situation will get. One day, things are going to come to light that you're going to wish had stayed hidden forever. It will hurt people deeper than you can anticipate. Honestly, I think it's for the best that I was the first to see it. Disaster surely would have struck if it had been anybody else," Mayura continued.

"Care to specify?" asked Ladybug. "I don't know if being vague is going to help your case."

Mayura shook her head. "I can't. I'd made a promise not to share. For once, I'd like to be decent."

"Right."

"Hawkmoth doesn't know I'm here." At the mention of his name, Ladybug's stern expression deepened into a frown. "If he were to become aware of what I know, I couldn't begin to guess what he'd do. The only thing I can control is the action I take myself. I stood idly by for longer than I have been participating in this game of cat and mouse. Then, I made a choice that sealed my fate. Now I realize the mistake I've made."

"Are you saying you regret working with him?" Ladybug asked her.

"To be truthful, if circumstances were different, I don't think I would. I won't sit here and claim to be a good person, but-"

"It's not too late," she interrupted.

"What?"

"To be a good person." Ladybug's face shone earnestly.

Mayura had to shake that part off. "But this is the closest to the right thing I think I can get, if the right thing is trying to keep everyone from being hurt." She tightened her fist over the black cat miraculous. "What Hawkmoth and I have been after, I still need. It's the only way to heal something that has been broken all of this time. Doing it now and doing it without anybody having to know about it is the only way I can fix everything."

Ladybug bristled. "But you won't fix everything. That's just what you think."

"You can't say that," countered Mayura, "You have no idea what I'm willing to sacrifice."

"That's the problem," Ladybug told her. "Look, if this is the most you can tell me, then I can't comply. To be honest, I wouldn't be able to comply even if you told me your entire life story start to finish."

"Ladybug, please."

"Mayura, if you're so desperate to stop fighting, then why don't you surrender? Instead of expecting me to just hand over one half of the most powerful weapon in the universe?" the heroine questioned. She held out her own hand. "You want to give up? Give up. Put your miraculous here in my hand, and this will all be over for you. It's your choice."

Mayura felt like she was backed into a corner or slipping from a high place. Her fan moved to cover the brooch pinned to her chest. "Give me yours in exchange."

"Are you serious?" Ladybug's hand snapped up to touch her miraculous protectively.

"I'll give you everything when I'm finished," Mayura promised. "Once I've made my wish, I will hand everything over to you. The earrings, the ring, and the brooch. I'll even get ahold of Hawkmoth's miraculous. Just let me do this."

"Is this really your best attempt at doing the right thing? Is this how you think it goes to play the hero? Maybe you should just leave that to me." Mayura stared at her, holding her fan in place. Ladybug huffed incredulously. "Okay, let's say I give you my earrings right now. You still have to get the black cat miraculous, and Chat Noir is less forgiving than I am."

_Chat Noir is less forgiving_. Mayura wouldn't believe that. She wouldn't believe that Adrien was less willing to show mercy, to turn the other cheek. Then, she imagined him seeing her now, pictured the look of betrayal on his face. Mayura had to stop being naïve; she knew Adrien was capable of darkness. She'd already seen it in the way he looked at his father, latent and fleeting, but still very real.

She couldn't bear to be on the receiving end of it. There was no option tonight but success. Either she walked away with Ladybug's earrings, or her world came crashing down on top of her.

"I have it."

"I'm sorry?"

"I have his miraculous," Mayura declared plainly.

Ladybug was speechless, her blue eyes wide with shock as she stared down at Mayura, who still knelt on the ground. Then, she started blinking rapidly. "You're bluffing."

Mayura shook her head gravely. She opened her left hand to reveal the ring sitting in her palm. Immediately, Ladybug took several steps back, her jaw hanging agape, her fingers outstretched. The color drained from her face, and suddenly the bright red costume she wore screamed like a fire around her bone white skin. For all that she had witnessed the heroine in perilous action, Mayura had never seen her as terrified as she looked right then.

"_No_."

"Do you know how easily this can all be over?" Mayura asked Ladybug, whose hands had shot up to cover her mouth as she sank further into her dismay. "Do you know that after tonight, you won't ever have to face Hawkmoth again?"

"Chat Noir..." Ladybug breathed, then darkness settled over her visage. She spun her yo-yo and took several threatening steps towards Mayura. "What did you do to Chat Noir?"

"He's safe," answered Mayura. "I didn't hurt him. That's not what I'm after."

"I don't believe you," hissed Ladybug.

Mayura finally rose to her feet and slipped the miraculous up her sleeve. "I didn't come out here to hurt you. If that's what I wanted, I wouldn't have wasted my time with this little conversation. Do you understand that? Surely, Ladybug, you're not looking forward to years and years of this game. Surely, you want this to be over just as much as I do. You must get tired."

"As long as Paris needs protection from the likes of you, I'll never tire."

"You're so noble," sneered Mayura. "Unfortunately, I'm not. And I can no longer stand the thought of letting this continue, but I'm not giving up either. I've made a thousand promises, and I plan on seeing them through, all the way to the end."

Ladybug must have seen the fire in her eyes, because the wild anger that pulsed from her direction started to weaken. Her vicious scowl waned. "Mayura, I don't know if you understand what you're doing. You say you want this to be over, you say all you want is a wish, but every wish comes with an equal price. The universe doesn't give anything for free, not even with that kind of power."

"I understand perfectly well," Mayura retorted acutely. "What I...what Hawkmoth wishes to gain back, will be lost in the form of something else."

Sincerity radiated from Ladybug so strongly that it made Mayura dizzy. "How don't you see why that's wrong?"

"Of course, we do. If we didn't, we would have simply asked for your miraculous a long time ago, wouldn't have wasted all this energy to fail a thousand times over and still keep trying. He's willing to keep fighting. He'll stop at nothing. But I..." She tried to stop the trembling of her voice. "I have my limits. And I know you think that it would be so easy to just make my own choice to stop helping him, but I can't just watch it knowing what's really going on." Her eyes started to well with tears, "Don't make this harder for me."

Ladybug shook her head, raising her guard again. "I can't have you-"

"Just let me do this for them," Mayura shouted, her fan snapping open with a sharp crack that echoed between the walls of the alleyway. Ladybug flinched at the wrench in her voice, but recovered quickly, winding her yo-yo once again.

Mayura had no choice. Ladybug wasn't going to give in. Without another word she attacked, swinging her fan right over Ladybug's nose. The young heroine sprang back on her hands and landed in the middle of the street before tossing her yo-yo at Mayura's right arm, the one whose sleeve protected Chat Noir's ring. Mayura dodged and leaped to land on a street light. Her ribs were hot with stabbing pain, but to let that slow her down would guarantee failure. From atop the light, she lunged and managed to kick her leg across Ladybug's shoulder, throwing her onto the asphalt. Before she could reach for the earrings, Ladybug rolled away, pitching her yo-yo for good measure. Mayura seized it out of the air and yanked it as hard as she could, sending Ladybug sprawling onto her abdomen. But the heroine was never down for too long. She flipped to her feet and tried several blows at Mayura, who blocked every single one with her fan, but found herself being slowly pushed back until she was nearly pressed against the large front window of a jewelry store. Having little room to move, she took Ladybug's fist to the cheek, but managed to duck away from the subsequent heel which collided with the window and sent a jagged crack through the glass.

Ladybug reeled only for a half second, but it was enough time for Mayura to spring to the side on her hands and land with a sweeping kick to Ladybug's legs. She grabbed the heroine and pinned her to the window, her feet dangling several inches off the ground. Another smaller crack split off from the first, and now the damage looked like the bolt of lightning firing through Mayura's head as something snapped inside of her. Ecstasy bled into her veins. Her vision went red.

She reached for one of the earrings. Panic rippled through Ladybug's eyes, and just as Mayura's fingertip brushed her ear lobe, she turned her head and snapped her teeth over her hand. The fear in her eyes was far less vicious than her bite, and it angered Mayura more than the stinging pain splitting across her skin. She yelped and bashed the girl's head into the glass just hard enough to dislodge her hand with a scrape of Ladybug's teeth. Ruby red blood welled in the breaks of her blue skin. She went for the earring again, but Ladybug spat between her eyes. Mayura dropped her onto her feet and immediately received a yo-yo to the chest. She recoiled, coughing. Ladybug glared at her, and a thread of saliva, scarlet with Mayura's blood dripped from her lower lip.

"Did you really think you could do this?" demanded the heroine. "You'd have been better off if you just left everything as it was."

Mayura tried to control herself. Fearful of Ladybug attacking her while she couldn't fight back, she continued to open distance between them on the street. The more she coughed, the deeper and rougher she started to sound. Her ribs screamed with pain. Her head was pounding. She couldn't breathe.

What was happening? She wasn't supposed to feel like this while transformed. It wasn't supposed to start until she had become Nathalie again, weak and broken and without magical powers to protect her from the reminder of her imminent fate. She collapsed onto her hands and knees, black spots exploding across her vision. Through the chaos, she saw Ladybug watching her. Her face was a blur, her eyes nearly sunken into the darkness spouting all around her. But Mayura could see that she wasn't moving.

Bewilderment was cotton stuffed into the mouth. Concern was sickly sweet.

She grappled her hands over the place Ladybug had struck her and realized she was clutching her miraculous. She felt hot, as though she was being lashed at by arms of fire. The black holes boring through her line of sight were joined by flashes of bright blue light. Bestial screams fired through her head: the roars of sentimonsters yet to surface in the world. She felt the life being squeezed out of her, the physical world being ripped away to make space for the power surging uninhibited through her being.

Mayura gasped for air between violent coughs. How long did they have until sunrise? How long has she been transformed? She didn't think she had ever been Mayura for this long. It must have been over eight hours. Eight hours, and she already felt like she was splitting apart, threatening to shatter like the window behind Ladybug's head, like the mirror in her apartment she wanted to destroy so she would never have to see herself again.

Mayura pressed her fan to her mouth, trying to stop her guttural coughing. Her body started to spasm with rich heaves. The asphalt under her hand started to feel fuzzy like carpet. She couldn't see. She couldn't fucking see.

A hand grabbed her shoulder, and Mayura jerked away. She heard Ladybug's voice, but every word sounded swallowed by distance. But she was there, she had to be right there. Why couldn't she hear Ladybug?

_She's going to take my miraculous_. That was the only thing she could think._ She's going to take it. Get away. Get away_.

Mayura didn't know which direction was up, but she couldn't stay there anymore. She backed away, trying to make the street feel like solid ground, until her spine grazed what must have been a wall and she used it to raise herself up. Her foot kicked at something, perhaps a rock.

Explosions of blue light like fireworks in the sky._ Don't let her follow you_.

She picked up the rock and threw it as hard as she could. The sound of glass shattering a million miles away set off some alarms. She thought she could see a bright white light: the jewelry store's security system wailing for attention. Mayura fled. She leaped from rooftop to rooftop, stumbling, falling, knocking over potted plants and nearly slamming into chimneys. She could only see as far as her own two feet, but it was enough to get her away.

By force of will alone did she manage to slip through her apartment window into the pitch-black living room.

_Is this how you think it goes to play the hero? _

She almost dropped her transformation, just to escape this horrible feeling and fall into a dangerously sound sleep, but Chat Noir's ring fell out of her sleeve and clattered onto the hardwood floor.

_Maybe you should just leave that to me._

It was far more than she and Hawkmoth had ever managed to achieve before, but without Ladybug's earrings it was nothing but solid proof of her failure.

_You'd have been better off.._.

And if Adrien were to wake without it, then she had managed to destroy everything that she was trying to protect that night.

Which is why a sentimonster returned the ring to Adrien's finger before the sun came up and died in a plume of shadow on his bed. Several blocks away, Mayura had vanished along with it, leaving Nathalie on the floor of the apartment, breaths so shallow and quiet that Duusu could barely hear them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pk-freezer-burnt on Tumblr made some wonderful art for this chapter ^_^
> 
> https://pk-freezer-burnt.tumblr.com/post/187722724637/ten-thousand-pounds-of-feathers-by-reminiscent


	7. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heroine's words came like hailfall breaking through the sound of rain. "Did you really think you could do this?" Nathalie found herself sitting fixed as stone, a blanket wrapped around her legs and a cup of tea going cold in her hands as she stared at the opposite wall. Ladybug may as well have been standing there, voice cutting through the white noise, "You'd have been better off if you just left everything as it was.'
> 
> Ladybug was behind her too, a wind at her back, hands falling over hunched shoulders, a whisper in her ear telling her, "It's not too late to be a good person."
> 
> Nathalie's tea spilled over her hands as she leaned forward and slammed her cup on the coffee table. "So, which is it then?" she snarled, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes.
> 
> Duusu dropped a dishtowel over the spill and flew away with her head down.

Chapter Six

Nathalie didn't show up to work for three days.

The first day was because she couldn't move. Her eyes fluttered open at two o'clock in the afternoon the day after she had failed to end things. Her throat and chest were tight. Her eyes followed the movement of her ceiling fan, and she realized that she was laying on her living room floor, dressed in her turtleneck and slacks with her miraculous still pinned to her chest. Nathalie commanded her limbs to move, but they did nothing more but twitch irregularly.

Duusu was perched on the bookshelf, watching her with round magenta eyes. Nathalie tried to call to her, but her voice caught in her throat, and it wouldn't give. She laid there for nearly an hour, fighting the unrelenting pull of sleep. When she finally had the strength to move, she didn't dare stand up. Duusu followed her silently as she crawled to her room and climbed up onto the bed. It seemed that as soon as her head hit the pillow, she lurched right back into darkness.

She woke again at midnight, gasping for air. Duusu flew into the room with a water bottle from the fridge, which Nathalie took down in a single breath. She hadn't remembered what scared her awake, but she lunged to turn the light on and sat with her knees pulled up to her chest.

When she had calmed down, she looked at Duusu suddenly. "The Agrestes!" she exclaimed, voice hoarse.

"Hawkmoth called you this morning," her kwami murmured.

"You mean Gabriel."

"Yes?" Duusu shook her head, dismissing the matter as unimportant. "He wanted to know where you were."

Nathalie started fishing for her phone in her bedsheets. "I have to call him back."

"It's fine, I answered."

She paused and gazed at Duusu dumbly. "_You_ answered Gabriel?"

"Someone had to." Duusu sat on Nathalie's knee. "I said you were sick. But don't worry, I didn't tell him what you did last night. He said you could have the day off." Her eyes flashed guiltily. "I'm sorry, Nathalie."

She cocked her head. "What for?"

"For making you this way."

Nathalie stared, unsure as to how to reply. After a moment, she let her head fall back against the headboard. Duusu took this as an end to their conversation and floated off to take her place on Nathalie's dresser. They both looked out the window quietly, counting the city lights, pretending not to feel broken.

The next two days were because Nathalie didn't know how to face them. She wasn't sure if she had expected her plan to actually work, but the dread that clawed at her stomach told her that either way, she hadn't intended to ever see them again. If she had succeeded, she'd be gone, nothing but a memory, just another missing woman who didn't matter nearly as much as the one the world had gained back in her place. If she had failed, she expected her identity to be compromised as a result, but she wasn't met with the suggestion that anybody knew who Mayura was.

How was she supposed to go back to a partner who couldn't possibly know why she had so suddenly changed her mind about everything? How could she choose between giving up with no explanation and utterly shattering his world apart with the revelation of Chat Noir's identity? How could that end well? What would that actually solve? Gabriel was already taking a huge risk regarding his son anyway, and realizing that ultimately failed to keep him from the powers of his miraculous. Nathalie had no reason to believe that telling him who his son really was would fix anything. It could easily set him on an even darker path.

How was she to face Adrien, who she betrayed by taking advantage of his trust and stealing his miraculous? How could she let his father continue to pursue him unknowingly while she watched it happen and pretended to be as dumb as the rest of Paris? How could she tell him the truth, letting what little chance he had of seeing his mother again slip away, letting the hope he had in Gabriel, his only remaining parent, be tainted forever? Being honest with Adrien would clear away the smoke of deception and betrayal, while simultaneously tearing apart Adrien and Gabriel for good, without Emilie between them to keep them tethered by a thread.

Nathalie kept the peacock miraculous on for those two days. She rarely spoke to Duusu, but just to have her there, hovering by in the apartment while Nathalie thought herself mad was all the comfort she could soak up. Duusu knew exactly how to help Nathalie when she started coughing or when her head turned to static. She had to wonder if she had treated Emilie this same way leading up to the day she fell asleep for good.

At some point, Nathalie asked Duusu, "Do you have any idea how to fix this?"

The kwami looked at her empathetically. "I don't even know what's wrong."

Nathalie's memory was like a thundercloud. Beyond her awareness that she had failed, the details of that harrowing night were a thick haze of darkness rolling through her head. Then, two charges married, and a flash of memory shot back into place. The serpent-like sentimonster and maze of emotions she navigated to find it; her clumsy bounds from rooftop to rooftop while she fooled herself into thinking that using the black cat miraculous was a good idea; Ladybug's steadfast refusal to give in; the pulses of her emotions as she watched Mayura cough the life out of her body.

"Do you think Ladybug knows there's something wrong with us?" Nathalie asked Duusu gingerly, her voice hardly louder than a breath. The only response she received was a round, unsettled gaze.

The heroine's words came like hailfall breaking through the sound of rain. "_Did you really think you could do thi_s?" Nathalie found herself sitting fixed as stone, a blanket wrapped around her legs and a cup of tea going cold in her hands as she stared at the opposite wall. Ladybug may as well have been standing there, voice cutting through the white noise, "_You'd have been better off if you just left everything as it was_.'

Ladybug was behind her too, a wind at her back, hands falling over hunched shoulders, a whisper in her ear telling her, "_It's not too late to be a good person._"

Nathalie's tea spilled over her hands as she leaned forward and slammed her cup on the coffee table. "So, which is it then?" she snarled, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes.

Duusu dropped a dishtowel over the spill and flew away with her head down.

Adrien texted Nathalie a few times over the days she was absent, clearly not knowing what to think of her being gone for so long. Nathalie herself didn't even remember the last time she had a day off. She tried to answer him as best she could, but most of the time, she didn't have the words to spare.

On Friday, he texted her, _Ladybug told me something weird_.

Her heart stopped when she read it, and she dropped her phone like it was on fire. Duusu jumped as it hit the countertop with a resounding slap.

"What if he knows?" she asked her kwami. "What do I say?"

Duusu rushed over to read the text herself. "Ask him what she said. Play dumb."

Nathalie's fingers quivered as she typed her reply. _What would that be?_

She chewed on her fingernails as she watched the bubbles on her screen bounce up and down. An eternity passed before he wrote, _She said she saw Mayura Tuesday night. Apparently she had my you-know-what_.

"Shit, Duusu," Nathalie cursed. She took a moment to calm down. Play dumb. She typed, _Is it gone_?

_No. I still have it. I think it must have been a fake. She was trying to get Ladybug to give her the earrings_. A pause, and then a second message. _One time we fooled a villain with fake miraculous. She probably did the same thing. LB never got close enough to make sure_.

_Well, since you still have it, I guess that must have been a false alarm_, Nathalie replied, sick with herself.

_Yeah I guess_. Another pause. _I really shouldn't be telling u this stuff. The less u know the better_.

Nathalie set her phone down, breathing out a sigh of relief. She'd surely be done for if she hadn't managed to return his miraculous.

Her phone vibrated again. _I just miss you_, Adrien had added. She read it a dozen times.

"Nathalie," Duusu cooed. "Don't cry."

She wiped her eyes and set her phone face down. Perhaps, done for would feel better than this.

* * *

On Saturday, Nathalie returned to the Agreste mansion. She knew that Adrien had a photoshoot lasting from ten in the morning to three, so she arrived while he was gone. It would not have done any good to stay away much longer. The best she could do for everybody was what she had always done best, imitate normalcy and encourage others to do the same.

Gabriel, she found, wasn't quite ready for her to fall back into that old role. He waited for her in the foyer, his hands held neatly behind his back. "Did you bring back the peacock miraculous?"

She shut the front door and kept her back to him. "It's in my pocket. Sir, if you don't mind, I'd like to hold on to it permanently."

"Are you sure taking a miraculous out of this mansion is a good idea?" he asked.

Her head turned to the side, and she saw him out of the corner of her eye. "I found over the last few days that I quite enjoy Duusu's company." At the mention of her kwami's name, she thought she saw Nooroo's head bob out from behind Gabriel's shoulder, but he disappeared quickly.

Gabriel approached her, stark as ever in his movement, but when he set his hand on her shoulder, his touch was delicate, like he feared she would break. "What did you do?" he whispered.

"Something foolish, that would have never worked." She smiled bitterly. "So, you know, the usual."

This didn't ruffle him like she thought it might. He pressed on her shoulder to prompt her to turn around completely. "It must have been pretty drastic if you didn't want me to know about it."

"No more drastic than using the peacock miraculous the first time." Her bun was messy that day; she tucked a piece of loose hair behind her ear and placed a hand over the one still holding her shoulder gently. She realized how close they were. "You remember what I said to you last weekend. Seeing Adrien in that kind of danger just..." She closed her eyes tightly, like they had been stung by something potent in the air. "I guess it just made me see things a little differently. I'm getting _tired_, Gabriel."

"I understand. You're giving up so much for this." He paused, looking at her admirably. "Have I ever told you how much that means to me?"

Her heart fluttered. "Yes. Perhaps a few times."

"A few isn't enough." He released her and stepped away, his hands returning to their position behind his back.

"You don't owe me anything," Nathalie told him. "This was a choice I made willingly."

He looked as though he was about to argue, then decided against it and asked her, his voice a little strained, "So, what do you want to do?"

Nathalie reached into her pocket, her fist closing around her miraculous. She nearly shuddered to think of the things she had done with it a few nights ago, and the things it had done to her in return. She remembered everything now: the spectrum of emotions she drank in as she sat on the floor of her living room, ready to strike as a bird-of-prey in the sky, and then remembered the emotions she felt while wearing it. The hysterical euphoria rushing in her blood like cold fire. The power that electrified her, streaming out of her hands, out of her miraculous, uncontrolled, dangerous, wonderful. The white-hot anger at Ladybug's integrity, then at herself for having so little in comparison. The fear and the desperation and the remorse and the venom that could subdue all of that. The spotty vision at the end of the night. The sound of coughing, of thorns in her lungs and throat. The feeling of a metal rod being driven through her skull every time she took the brooch off.

She knew the answer, but she didn't know how to say it out loud without hating herself. Nathalie gazed up at Gabriel, who was watching her patiently, with more raw compassion in his eyes that she had ever seen this clearly. How could she think that pity was all that he felt for her, as safe and as sensible as it was to believe? She asked him, "Do you think you're a bad person?"

To her surprise, he smiled. It was a small and sad smile, but it was there, and it warmed her just enough to let herself relax. "I see what I'm doing, Nathalie. I know I am. But it's temporary. A bad person today doesn't have to be a bad person forever. If I could just have her back..." He trailed off, closing his eyes.

"How do you live with yourself in the meantime?" she asked quietly, stepping closer, trying not to lose him to a spiral of grief.

He opened his eyes again. "Hope."

They watched each other, two pairs of blue eyes waiting for the other to falter in its sincerity. Neither of them did. Gabriel wrapped his arms around Nathalie's shoulders. She closed her eyes and yielded to the embrace, pressing her face into his chest. She listened to his heart beat, steady, comforting. It made her hold on tighter.

"Everything is going to be fine," he murmured.

She knew it wasn't. But in that moment, she came very close to believing him.

* * *

Nathalie was waiting for Adrien when he came home from his photoshoot. The excitement in his bright green eyes sent a stab of guilt through her chest, but she ignored it and accepted his hug. He immediately started telling her about the last three days she had missed, that he had a math exam on Thursday that he aced, and that the night before, he visited Marinette at her family's patisserie and agreed to go on another "date" sometime soon. Nathalie even managed to joke that she hopefully wouldn't be expected to tag along on this one.

He was on his way to his room when she took him by the arm. "Adrien, before you go…"

"Yes, Nathalie?" He beamed at her from a few steps above. Nathalie felt small beneath him.

"I'm sorry," she said, blinking at him somberly.

His smile was polite and puzzled. "For what?"

"For not seeing how brave and strong you always were." She tightened her grip on his arm, eyebrows pinching together as she tried to keep herself from breaking. "I…I just never knew. I never considered it, not for a moment. I've been responsible for you since you were so young, and I guess I just always saw you as someone that needs to be protected, but that's not who you are at all. I know your father and I don't…don't treat you like a hero…" She tried to smile, feeling the corners of her lips twitch. "But you're doing incredible things, Adrien."

The glint in his eyes was brighter than a star. Nathalie could have crumbled at seeing how touched he was. "I'm still the same kid you've always known." He set his hand over hers. "I really meant it when I said I didn't know what I'd do without you. I may wear the mask, but you're the real hero, Nathalie."

He moved to continue up the stairs, but she didn't let him go. She stared down at her own stone-like grip on his forearm, as though her hand wasn't listening to her mind's command to release him.

"Nathalie?"

Her gaze snapped up to his face. "I have to tell you something."

He appeared concerned, though not apprehensive. Adrien nodded his head and coaxed her gently, "Okay, what is it?"

Nathalie's mouth dropped open, beginning to form the shape of words, but only a weak breath escaped her. That look he was giving her, that earnest, well-meaning, compassionate look that shone from his eyes like light reflecting off the surfaces of emeralds – the look hiding behind the eyelids of his mother waiting for her promised rescue in the butterfly sanctuary – stole her voice away. She didn't deserve that look. She wished for a second that he hated her. Ladybug stood on the stair landing, glowering between the both of them, reminding her, "Chat Noir is less forgiving than I am."

Then she let him go and shook away her wish. She never wanted to know if Ladybug was right.

The words she had been trying to force out of her mouth died in an invisible puff of smoke. Her head hung in defeat and she backed down one step. Adrien stared at her from above, quiet, uncertain, hand paused in the air as though he had tried to reach for her as she distanced herself.

"You're a better person than I am," she finally told him, her voice sounding as though it kept getting caught on something deep in her chest. "I'm not a hero. I'm just doing my job, and I'm…I'm so sorry if I have ever hurt you by it. I know I have. I know I will."

Adrien looked like he didn't know how to respond. She didn't want him to. Nathalie adjusted her blazer and descended the remaining stairs, clearing her throat so as to thwart any attempt of his to reassure her. A flip switched in her head; the tightness in her facial muscles relaxed and she turned back to him with her familiar neutral expression. Her next words were intensely clinical:

"Your father wants you spend some time on the piano. Your plans last weekend had interfered with your practice."

Immediately he deflated. For a second or two, his eyes searched for any semblance of the vulnerable woman who had just been speaking to him, and Nathalie merely tilted her chin up when she saw he failed to find her. He started back up the stairs. "Yes, of course," he mumbled. But he stopped bravely at his bedroom door and said to her, "I _mean it_, Nathalie."

The door had closed, and she felt half-relieved at her failure. Nathalie had never seen herself as someone that Adrien needed. She was only ever attempting to fill space suited for Gabriel and Emilie exclusively, and even then she resisted their molds out of fear of discovering just how misshapen she was for them. But Adrien didn't seem to mind. She wondered if she had been just as deaf to his affection as Gabriel had been all this time. Perhaps, her sudden disappearance would have done more harm than good –

But _no_, that wasn't right either. She was audacious to consider that. His mother would have been back in her place, and she could _never _fail him the way Nathalie had. She saw her reflection in the sheen of the marble floors. The woman looking back at her was a supervillain to the all of Paris, mad and evil and bent on unleashing chaos unto them all. She was despicable, selfish –

But she was a hero to Adrien, and she asked herself if that could be enough, just for now.

Ladybug knelt before her, looking between Nathalie and her reflection. "_It's not too late to be a good person_." Her words crashed into each other as though they were all saying the same thing. "_Maybe you should just leave that to me - You'd have been better off if you left everything as it was_."

Nathalie gazed at her, a smile tugging at her lips, trying to split through her solemn face. Maybe Ladybug was right – she glanced back at Adrien's door as he took to his piano – how could she possibly give this up? It was _everything_ _she had_.

The next couple days passed peacefully. Nathalie came close to letting herself be normal, but every now and then her head would start pounding, or she would start coughing, or Duusu would stare at her for just a little too long and send a chill into her bones that she could only stop by closing her eyes, but it was as near to regular as she could get. It was enough for Adrien, and enough for Gabriel, who worked across the room in his same old frenzy. Then, they would meet eyes, and the ghosts of smiles would appear on their faces while sadness and fear and hope gleamed in their ocean-colored irises.

But on Monday, peace came to a grinding halt. Gabriel stiffened at an alert by his miraculous, and his gaze drifted from Emilie's portrait to Nathalie and back again. Nathalie set her tablet down sharply and linked her fingers.

He looked at her. "Will you be coming?"

She countered, "Will you be needing me?"

"It's up to you."

Dutifully, Nathalie nodded her head.

The problem with all of this was, she told herself as she and Gabriel traveled to the lair with Nooroo and Duusu hovering wearily over their shoulders, that she had spent several excruciating days wondering madly about the right thing to do. As though she had ever really cared. Nothing would have changed her mind had she not seen Chat Noir take Adrien's place in a brilliant, damning flash of green light. Had that man not seen him disappear into the building to transform, Nathalie would still be as blind as remorseless as ever, continuing to deny herself the thought that what she was doing was wrong enough to question.

Her heart drummed in her chest. Gabriel glanced down, noticing her distress. She looked forward, trying to ignore it.

_It doesn't matter_, she repeated, like a mantra written to set her at ease. _It doesn't matter _that Nathalie was Mayura, or that Gabriel was Hawkmoth, and that that made them super villains.

Adrien was Chat Noir.

That was the only thing that stopped her.

She and Gabriel were a pair bound by ten thousand promises, to themselves and to each other. All of his vowed to bring back Emilie; all of hers swore to help him, at the cost of her own life, whether he knew it or not. She had made the choice to don the peacock miraculous and send the remainder of her days into a slow, steep, and painful descent. Likewise, Adrien had made the choice to be a hero, to pick up the pieces they scattered across Paris in their mission to remain true to their word, even if they had to change reality to do it. Nathalie had already hurt a million people who were all faceless to her, and _Mayura _enjoyed doing it. Adrien had been the only one that counted, but he was stronger than all of them.

As Hawkmoth appeared before her in a cloud of bright white butterflies, Nathalie remembered every roadblock they had ever crashed into, only to take a couple steps back from the wreckage and keep moving through a labyrinth of walls they failed to see. His devotion was stupid and destructive and amazing, because it couldn't be challenged. One day his eyes would open, and it would be for all the damage he caused. That day had yet to come, but their sides were chosen. The war was still only beginning. Whatever became of her and Gabriel would be exactly what they deserved.

Her heart ached for Adrien in the meantime, but he was the superhero. He was better than both of them. That alone was going to help her sleep at night.

Nathalie hoped to live long enough to see it all through to the end.

She hoped she might be forgiven.

Her hand caressed the brooch on her turtleneck. Even it was less broken than the heart it was pinned over. As she shouted into the open room, she relinquished her mind to her miraculous, let it be ripped apart and snuffed under the weight of the power taking hold. If Nathalie couldn't bear this anymore, then Mayura would take it up, fight for a way out, and assure the woman dying inside of her that this would all be over soon.

Hawkmoth flinched at the pain in her voice.

"Duusu, transform me!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> The sequel, The Beginning of Goodbye, will be dropping on October 27th! So keep a look out! It doesn't end here!


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